| Time | Speaker | Text |
|---|---|---|
| 00:00:33.26 | Unknown | Wait. Good evening and welcome to the December 10th, 2013 meeting, which is the last one of the year. We have roll call, please. |
| 00:00:50.81 | Unknown | Councilmember Pfeiffer? Here. Councilmember Theodorus? Present. Councilmember Whitty? |
| 00:00:52.07 | Thomas Theodores | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:00:52.16 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE present. Here. |
| 00:00:55.20 | Unknown | Yeah. By Smare Leone. |
| 00:00:57.10 | Unknown | here. |
| 00:00:57.54 | Unknown | Me or Weiner? |
| 00:00:58.00 | Unknown | Bye. Present. At this time here, the Pledge of Allegiance. Michael McBride, you want to lead us in the pledge? Now you know why I asked your name. |
| 00:01:29.06 | Unknown | Okay. We had closed session, and it was on two legal items and one property negotiations at MLK. At this time here, is there anybody from the public that would like to make a comment on the closed session item? Okay, then we'll move on to the approval of the agenda. |
| 00:01:54.28 | Thomas Theodores | move. |
| 00:01:55.36 | Unknown | Second. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay, this time here, some of the fun parts. |
| 00:01:57.73 | Thomas Theodores | I know. |
| 00:02:03.84 | Unknown | We have a special presentation. And that's the swearing in of new officer, Devin Rose, and Jennifer Tejada is here. |
| 00:02:18.14 | Unknown | your own. You have the right to remain silent. |
| 00:02:26.46 | Unknown | Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council members, City Manager, City Clerk, City Attorney, good to see you, and audience members and viewing public. This is one of the fun things that I get to do as Chief of Police. It takes a long time. Our opportunity tonight is to swear in our newest officer, Davin Rose, and it's taken us a long time to get to this point because we are very selective. Sausalito is a unique city or town, and we carefully select the candidates that we end up swearing in as police officer in the city. because they have to bring to the table a quality that embraces public service, but also understands the service demands of this community, as well as our high service delivery standards. And so it takes us a while to find the right candidate. And we did find Davin Rose, and we are very excited to have him here. And before I swear him in, I want to tell you a little bit about what he's bringing to the table. He was born in Sacramento and grew up in Huayrica, California, and then spent a brief time in Reno, Nevada, He moved to Petaluma where he attended and graduated from Casa Grande High School in 2004. Shortly after high school, he joined the United States Army. Davin spent six years in the service, and he did two tours of duty in Iraq. So I want to pause for a moment and thank him sincerely for that service. We really appreciate what you sacrificed for that six years and those two tours of duty. Thank you. |
| 00:04:16.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:04:26.17 | Unknown | Davin left military service in 2010 with an honorable discharge and returned to Petaluma. He promptly enrolled in Santa Rosa Junior College and used his military college benefits there. He is a graduate of the Santa Rosa Junior College, the public safety training center there. And he's currently living in Petaluma, and tonight he's accompanied by many friends, and most importantly, his long-term girlfriend, Katie, who's sitting beside him. And also here I want to mention Mike Bride, Katie's parents, and his wife, Patty. And as you know, Mike has a very distinguished career in law enforcement. Davin is in good company. And in his spare time, David enjoys fishing, camping, and time with family and friends. And so it's my honor to come before you tonight and swear him in as our 18th sworn person. So will you come up here? And I think, is Katie going to pin your badge? |
| 00:05:43.10 | Unknown | So you're going to repeat after me. |
| 00:05:49.68 | Unknown | and raise your right hand. I, and you say your name, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend |
| 00:06:03.01 | Unknown | the Constitution of the United States, |
| 00:06:05.21 | Davin Rose | Thanks. the Constitution of the United States. |
| 00:06:07.67 | Unknown | and the Constitution of the State of California |
| 00:06:10.89 | Davin Rose | you Thank you. |
| 00:06:13.05 | Unknown | against all enemies, foreign and domestic. |
| 00:06:18.99 | Unknown | that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of the United States |
| 00:06:27.73 | Unknown | and the Constitution of the State of California |
| 00:06:27.77 | Davin Rose | and the Constitution of the State of California |
| 00:06:30.03 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. state of California. |
| 00:06:32.88 | Unknown | that I take this obligation freely |
| 00:06:32.90 | Unknown | Thank you. I take it. May I take us all? |
| 00:06:37.30 | Unknown | without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, Reservation. and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon which I am about to enter. |
| 00:06:57.97 | Davin Rose | Thank you. |
| 00:07:23.37 | Unknown | I've never had one go out of the hand, get on the staff. you |
| 00:07:26.44 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:26.46 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:26.49 | Unknown | Watch out. |
| 00:07:27.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:07:32.82 | Unknown | I present Officer Davin Rose. |
| 00:07:40.77 | Unknown | Congratulations. |
| 00:07:56.82 | Davin Rose | If I can, I'd just like to thank the city for this great opportunity and the department itself for sticking with me and giving me this opportunity to serve this great community. And definitely all my family and friends that have encouraged me and supported me along the way. So thank you. |
| 00:07:57.10 | Unknown | I just like to... Thank you. |
| 00:08:14.91 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:08:22.23 | Unknown | Okay. Okay. |
| 00:08:34.36 | Unknown | You can see me anytime behind the Bank of America during the day. |
| 00:08:43.31 | Unknown | I'm going to get out your location. |
| 00:08:43.58 | Unknown | I'm not your location for it. |
| 00:08:55.12 | Unknown | Okay, we'll wait until I leave, you know. |
| 00:09:04.72 | Unknown | At this time here, we have communications, and this is the time for the City Council to hear from citizens regarding matters that are not on the agenda, except in very limited situations. State law precludes the council. from taking action or engaging in discussions concerning these items. So for anybody here that would like to speak about an item that is not on the agenda, please come up and state your name. |
| 00:09:37.27 | Crystal Gift | Hi, my name is Crystal Gift. I represent your Rapid Boat Response Team, and I have some safety issues that need to be addressed. When a boat sinks, our Coast Guard does not bring oil absorbent booms to contain – to put around the vessels that are sunk. Yes, they Thank you. Ticket them. They take two weeks before they're removed, but while these boats are waiting to be removed, They are leaking oil, gas, and diesel into our bay. The Anchor Out is the first one to call our Coast Guard in concerns of the environment and our own personal health. My husband is a herring row fisherman, And I like caviar, don't you? This hurts our community and it hurts our environment. I am up to 36 successful boat rescues. I am very proud of my team. We work together and separate. My team is my community. We work side by side. making it a safer place to live. We promote overboard ladders that will lower the fatality rate in Anchorage. We also promote chance anchors that will stop boats from hitting the beaches during storms. As a community, we would like safety inspections once a month on a dock for our tenders. where we can get inspected and be provided with stickers. That way when the men and women are on patrol, they can see that the ones that have stickers are legal, and don't need to be stopped, and this will help us get to work on time and keep our jobs. We would like to invite the citizens who live in the homes along Belvedere to join us. We can help them with boat proofing their homes. We cannot help them if they are not here to address their concerns. As an acre out, I would love to see a community that works together on all sides of the fence to make our community a safe place to live where we as a community can work, live, and play in a stress-free environment. Thank you for listening to our concerns and blessings to you all. |
| 00:11:36.80 | Unknown | Okay, thank you. Anybody else at this time? |
| 00:11:43.03 | Unknown | you |
| 00:11:49.29 | Alice Merrill | My name is Alice Merrill and I just want to say that I can't be at the meeting on Thursday childcare, but I really want you guys to know, and whoever else is involved, that I want some access to the water. And it's historical and... I even talked to Herb Madeline. He said, absolutely. Hope he doesn't mind that I said that. But so that's, I won't be here, so I just wanted to say it. |
| 00:12:16.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:17.32 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:12:17.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:12:17.38 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:12:17.43 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:12:19.17 | Douglas Storms | Thank you. |
| 00:12:26.56 | Douglas Storms | My name is Douglas Storms, 700 Guelpho Point, South Salado, California. My concern is, I've talked to the council before concerning public safety issues concerning Richardson Bay. You heard from Crystal Giff, the speaker before. She doesn't have professional training. She's not, because she didn't go through Coast Guard or whatever. Um, And when her husband's fishing, she's out there 24-7. She has like these. radar that she knows when a boat's moving. It's unbelievable because she'll give me a call at like two in the morning, hey, we got another one going, or something like that. And, but she's risking her life And so I figure that certainly if average citizen can go above and beyond and try to make the community safer, prevent loss of life or loss of property, How much more can those people that are getting paid and that are in a position to make good policy, effective policy, a policy that doesn't waste taxpayer money. This is my concern is that the Richardson Bay Regional Agency, of which Sauce Lidoa is a part of, is pursuing policies that lead down a rabbit hole. And it's a waste of government money. This year they've received, they have $470,000 grant money from the state, or no, excuse me, it's from the money tree. It's not from the, it's just magic money that comes in. They have $470,000 to dispose of boats. So what happens is that boats from around the bay, they come in here and it's like drawing a bear to honey, bee to honey, whatever you want to call it, it's a coming. And there's no way to stop it. There's 200, I gave you a demographic survey previously. There's 210 boats out there. There's probably 100 boats that are of the anchor outs. So all these other boats are being enticed in, it's almost like a drug addict or whatever, you know, the pusher gets people hooked on it. Well, Bill has the money and he pays people to bring boats in in order to be demolished. And those people that bring the boats in pirate the stuff off from the boats, It takes all the valuable stuff. turns it over to Bill, and they actually get paid money to get rid of the boat that they've salvaged all the equipment off from. I can't tell you, look back, people that are on the RBRA, the representatives, look back at the information. And what I'm saying will bear out. Um, There's so much more that I can say, but what's critical, I keep on saying it, community involvement, communication, And we have to have a working group to sit down to resolve this. Thank you. |
| 00:15:34.04 | Unknown | Thank you, Doug. Anybody else? Okay. Let's move along to some action minutes of the previous meeting, and I'd like to move on the November 19, 2013. the meeting, the minutes, |
| 00:15:57.03 | Ray Withy | I move to approve those minutes as submitted. Thank you. |
| 00:16:00.74 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:16:01.86 | Thomas Theodores | Second? |
| 00:16:02.53 | Unknown | Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? No. Okay. Thank you. Let's move on. Next, we have the item as a consent calendar. And usually matters are listed under the consent calendar unanimously. The consent calendar considered a routine and non-controversial. and require no discussion, I'm expected to have unanimous council support and may be enacted by the council in one motion in the form of listed below a motion. Okay. Can I have a motion to... accept or Anyone want to remove something from the consent calendar? |
| 00:16:49.46 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. |
| 00:16:51.40 | Unknown | Yep. |
| 00:16:51.69 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. On 4B, the strategic planning notes. Um... As you know, I could not attend the strategic planning session due to the scheduling and my work schedule, and I was wondering I did provide input though regarding a 10-year fiscal plan. And I notice I see the Achieve and Maintain Fiscal Sustainability and Resiliency |
| 00:17:10.01 | Unknown | No, no. |
| 00:17:10.45 | Unknown | and the |
| 00:17:15.75 | Thomas Theodores | I see a 10-year CIP development. but I don't see the 10-year fiscal plan. So I'm wondering, should we pull this for discussion, or should we just have the minutes reflect that I? Yeah, have the minutes reflect. Okay. Thank you. |
| 00:17:25.37 | Unknown | Thank you. Yeah, have the minute free. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. With that, approval of the consent calendar. |
| 00:17:36.22 | Michael Rex | So move. |
| 00:17:37.81 | Unknown | second. I'll second that. Okay. All in favor? Aye. Opposed? Okay. Thank you. All right. Let's move on to business items, and that is the first one we have on that is item A, and that's the housing element update, subcommittee membership. And, Lily, would you lead us with that, please? |
| 00:17:41.94 | Thomas Theodores | All right. |
| 00:18:04.13 | Unknown | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And council members, I do have a brief PowerPoint. |
| 00:18:29.02 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:18:48.98 | Unknown | Thanks, Debbie. for it. So in September of this year, staff provided an update on the housing element process. Now, we identified two different tracks. One was the implementation of the adopted housing element. And that included the ADUs, liveaboards, and a variety of zoning ordinance amendments. The other track was the update of the upcoming cycles housing element, and that's due to the state by January 2015. In order to complete all of this work within the short time frame, staff recommended the assistance of a consultant. That was M Group, who assisted the city with the prior cycles housing element. Staff also recommended the formation of a housing element subcommittee. consisting of one planning commissioner and one city council member. The council appointed Councilmember Withey and Planning Commissioner Joan Cox to be a part of that subcommittee. The council also directed the subcommittee to meet with staff and the consultant to provide input on the frequency of public meetings and proposed the appropriate process for this The subcommittee did meet twice in November and worked with staff and the consultant to develop the process that's on the screen here. And this flowchart takes us from this month through January of 2015. It begins with the first track, which is the implementation of the adopted housing element. which would include two public subcommittee meetings and then a public meeting check-in with the council. in a community workshop. Another public meeting check in with the council. two Planning Commission hearings, and then two Council hearings. At each point in that process, there's an opportunity for a meeting with the subcommittee as well. In the second track, which is the update of the housing element, that includes a public subcommittee meeting Then a public check-in with the council, a community workshop, another public check-in with the council. two planning commission hearings another public check-in with the council and then two council hearings on the element |
| 00:21:23.49 | Unknown | With regard to the scope of work, which was previously reviewed by the Council, the subcommittee is recommending that the following be added to the scope of work, and that's three housing elements subcommittee meetings. In addition, the VMU and HMU ordinance amendments, and then also two additional council meetings to be held prior to each community workshop. The subcommittee is also recommending that the subcommittee be expanded by one additional council member and one additional planning And this would provide more oversight in the review of the zoning ordinance amendments and the housing element update as a whole. |
| 00:22:09.01 | Unknown | The additional work would add $8,240 to the existing contract, and this is within the budget allocation granted by the council, which included a 10 percent buffer for the Any additional meetings would require additional funds and additional funding could be addressed at the mid-year budget review. |
| 00:22:32.63 | Unknown | But that staff is recommending that the council appoint one additional council member and then direct the Planning Commission to appoint one additional Planning Commissioner. to the Housing Element Subcommittee. And that concludes our staff report and I'm available for any questions. |
| 00:22:48.78 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor if I can just jump in because I didn't get a chance to communicate this with Lilly. In my conversations with Community Development Director, Jeremy Graves, the recommendation is to hold off on the appointment for today's meeting and do that in January. We have tonight, later tonight, we have the changing of the guard, Mayor and Vice Mayor, and in January is normally when the council appointments take place. We think that it's best to make those appointments in January. This gives the Planning Commission an opportunity to make their nomination and then the council to go after them. in January. So I just wanted to share that, We want your agreement to add the second person tonight from both the planning commission and the council but hold off on the appointment until |
| 00:23:33.73 | Unknown | I appreciate it. |
| 00:23:37.18 | Adam Politzer | January. |
| 00:23:38.14 | Unknown | Yeah, so you're seeking disapproval of us to add on the council. that the Planning Commission be able to choose one from there. Is that correct? |
| 00:23:48.06 | Unknown | Correct. And then in January, you would appoint one council member and confirm the nomination from the Planning Commission. |
| 00:23:51.69 | Unknown | Confirmed. I think that's fair and reasonable. Yeah. |
| 00:23:59.01 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. |
| 00:23:59.89 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 00:24:00.84 | Thomas Theodores | So I'm just wondering, is there a reason why the City Council meetings were scheduled prior to the community workshop as opposed to after the community workshop. |
| 00:24:14.37 | Unknown | actually in both locations and the original scope of work had the community workshop occurring without council review of the draft ordinances or the draft element and the subcommittee felt like it was appropriate to have the council take a look at those documents before we went forward with a community workshop |
| 00:24:37.03 | Thomas Theodores | So, beside the approval of adding an additional council member and planning commission member, are you asking for approval three additional housing element subcommittee meetings and the adding the VMU, HMU to the zoning ordinance or is it just the appointment to the committee? |
| 00:24:56.37 | Unknown | The specific recommendation would be the appointments to the committee and this would be the direction that staff and the consultant would be proceeding with the zoning ordinance amendments and the housing element update. |
| 00:25:09.55 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:25:10.38 | Thomas Theodores | Lily, I have a follow-up. Mr. Mayor, I have a follow-up question. |
| 00:25:13.08 | Unknown | Right. |
| 00:25:13.46 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. So you're adding the VMU and HMU zoning ordinance amendments. I'm just curious. I know, I'm trying to remember when we discussed this last, but we're addressing the liveaboards and the second units in this as well, aren't we? That's correct. And I'm just curious, is there a reason why the VMU and HMU was not included initially? |
| 00:25:40.55 | Unknown | It was an oversight on our part. We were focusing mainly on the required components from HCD to get through what they're calling the streamlined process, and that's that the components need to be adopted prior to submitting a revised housing element. The VMU and HMU was a critical part of our past adopted housing element, and so that needs to be completed prior to submitting housing element in the future so we included that in the scope of work so that that work would get done |
| 00:26:12.39 | Thomas Theodores | So in other words, as a follow-up question, if we were to meet our, is there a chance where we might be able to meet our requirements with the less controversial programs and avoid doing the VMU and HMU? Thank you. |
| 00:26:27.44 | Unknown | No. MGRIP is adamant that the VMU-HMU program needs to be completed. |
| 00:26:33.34 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, so the end group is, but is Sacramento, have they put that in? been specific as well. |
| 00:26:40.98 | Unknown | That was a critical part of getting our housing element adopted in the last cycle. HCD was, that was the hinge point on having them certify the housing elements. |
| 00:26:53.06 | Thomas Theodores | Even after the... Even after Sacramento, I think HCD had identified that we were over quota, like the initial big number actually was a lot smaller. . |
| 00:27:07.84 | Unknown | you The VMU and HMU is a critical part of getting our housing element adopted in the future. |
| 00:27:09.13 | Thomas Theodores | DM UNH. |
| 00:27:13.36 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:13.46 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:27:13.80 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:13.85 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:27:13.97 | Unknown | Thank you. of the |
| 00:27:14.93 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:27:14.95 | Thomas Theodores | Jonathan. So the time frame, anticipated time frame for adoption would be |
| 00:27:15.57 | Thomas Theodores | So, |
| 00:27:21.24 | Unknown | It would be in February. |
| 00:27:23.89 | Thomas Theodores | February. |
| 00:27:24.84 | Unknown | Thank you. Oh, this schedule puts us at having the housing element adopted and sent to HCD for certification in November of next year. |
| 00:27:26.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:26.61 | Thomas Theodores | Because you... |
| 00:27:27.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:27:35.81 | Thomas Theodores | Oh, okay. |
| 00:27:37.29 | Unknown | And there's a little bit of some wiggle room there if something does slip. |
| 00:27:41.58 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. And is there a deadline? What's the hard deadline? |
| 00:27:45.68 | Unknown | other. |
| 00:27:46.03 | Thomas Theodores | of January 2015. |
| 00:27:47.48 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. |
| 00:27:49.32 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a clarification. Yeah, I want to first... |
| 00:27:50.57 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 00:27:50.98 | Unknown | Do you want to first, Brad, do you have a question? I have no questions, I was on the subcommittee. Okay, go ahead. |
| 00:27:54.35 | Unknown | So Thank you. |
| 00:27:57.69 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, so forgive me, Lily, because I'm trying to recall all of this. But I remember there was one flow chart that I took exception to because it wrapped up I want to say some form of the housing element with a combined city council and planning commission meeting. Was that the housing element or was that a different... topic. |
| 00:28:20.76 | Unknown | Not the housing element. Not the housing element. We've always had the planning commission and council meeting separate. |
| 00:28:21.76 | Thomas Theodores | Not the hell. Okay, thank you. |
| 00:28:25.62 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:28:27.76 | Unknown | Okay, any other questions? Okay, take some, any public comment on this item? Amen. |
| 00:28:45.80 | Scott Diamond | My name is Scott Diamond. And I want to address the issue of counting the liveaboards as low-income housing. My understanding is that the harbors in this town need to have an agreement to have a harbor on what is really public access water. and the city has basically gone into agreement with harbors over using some of the most prime water front in the world for parking lots for rich people's yachts. And if we're going to count liveaboards as low income, I think that the city should examine the position they're into, maybe guarantee that some of this housing stays low income because there is I don't see any... written that provides to keep some of these boats in a low income situation. So I hope you'll examine that. |
| 00:29:48.24 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:29:48.26 | Scott Diamond | Thank you. |
| 00:29:48.28 | Thomas Theodores | Scott, you have a very good point up here, but a very good point. Both, I think, the two things we need to examine in the course of the zoning ordinance amendment process with the housing element is that some percentage of liveaboard dock space be set aside or at different rent levels, and that whereas the city used to restrict the percentage of the boards that maybe in some harbors don't have allowed the boards maybe we require that some harbors now allow the boards at those lower rent levels. |
| 00:30:06.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:30:06.80 | Scott Diamond | Right. |
| 00:30:22.33 | Scott Diamond | Well, I further think that we should look at some of the, you know, there's these live aboard fees that get socked to some people that have been living here for 30, 40, 50 years that are getting old now and it doesn't really reflect the increase in water usage or anything. And I have an 80-year-old man in my neighborhood that's being hassled for his parking spot and he's been living there since 1980 and he leaves town and now, |
| 00:30:41.31 | Unknown | Right. Amen. |
| 00:30:50.31 | Scott Diamond | I mean, he's living on $200 cash after all his expenses, and he's being squeezed to find a place to park his car beyond the parking lot while the neighboring harbor is using our parking lot without being corrected for this. So I just think there's some issues that I think the city really needs to look at its position on the fact that there's no oversight on what's going on in the harbors right now. |
| 00:31:19.67 | Unknown | Thank you. Nice guy. Okay, any other public comment? All right, let's bring it back up here for direction, recommendation. |
| 00:31:33.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:33.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:34.03 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:31:34.35 | Unknown | you |
| 00:31:35.19 | Thomas Theodores | as directed in the staff report to all four elements here that are four sub points. |
| 00:31:35.97 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:31:42.47 | Unknown | No, this is for the addition of the one from the council. That's what I'm saying. But there are four different things you're asking for here. Okay, that's the one number that I know. |
| 00:31:46.72 | Thomas Theodores | That's what I'm saying, but there are four different things. |
| 00:31:48.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:31:48.59 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 00:31:49.03 | Unknown | for him. |
| 00:31:49.54 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:31:49.57 | Unknown | Okay, that's one. |
| 00:31:51.50 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:31:51.51 | Unknown | Well, there are four bullets. okay i withdraw my motion immediately |
| 00:31:57.61 | Unknown | I'm not. |
| 00:31:57.98 | Thomas Theodores | I withdraw my motion immediately. Yeah. I actually have a comment and I know that we are over quota right now with the housing element that was certified. And I'm just wondering, I know that other towns have pushed back with Sacramento with some of the more controversial. programs that increase density. and in some cases compromised small town character. And when I look at the VMU and HMU zoning ordinance amendments, I can't help but you know, wonder if that might be an opportunity for us to engage in further conversations with Sacramento. |
| 00:32:50.63 | Unknown | Well, we have a choice. If we don't go through, And we're talking about making next The next round, approximately 79 units, which is very, very doable for us. We have the opportunity if we complete that. you that we can wave and not have to worry about anything for for eight years. or we could be stubborn and stand up. and have it done every four years. I think we in this city should first worry about meeting our obligations Uh-huh. AND ON A COUNTY LEVEL, we could address that, but for now I really would like us to move ahead. 79 units to me is Is it all bold? And I'd like to be able to move ahead on that. Well, right. And then I'll go. |
| 00:33:41.17 | Thomas Theodores | Well, Well, we're not, that's not before us tonight. And that's something that the committee can take a look at at that time. But I don't think we're really getting into the details. And that's something that could be explored at that time. But we're really, I think the only question we're asking is if we're going to increase the membership of the subcommittee. Is that correct, Lily? You're not asking the other three points. |
| 00:33:44.83 | Unknown | That's something that's... |
| 00:34:01.35 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 00:34:03.61 | Thomas Theodores | I just want a clarification. Now, you're asking us to appoint one additional council member and one additional planning commission member. |
| 00:34:10.24 | Unknown | We're looking for the council to appoint those additional representatives, but we're also informing you this is the direction that we're going with the scope of work. So we're proceeding with the work. If there's direction that the council would like to give on the scope of work, then now would be the time. |
| 00:34:21.70 | Unknown | Cheers. |
| 00:34:26.61 | Unknown | you. |
| 00:34:27.88 | Thomas Theodores | So, Lily, as a follow-up question to Council Member Theodorus. So, what we're voting on tonight includes the added cost of adding the VMU, HMU, ordinance zoning amendments to the scope of the M group. |
| 00:34:48.62 | Unknown | The motion that we were looking for was adding the additional members on the subcommittee. |
| 00:34:53.39 | Unknown | on the subject. Thank you. |
| 00:34:56.53 | Unknown | and then informing the council that the subcommittee is... I see. So there's opposition to this additional scope of work, then council should provide staff direction in that manner. I see. |
| 00:34:59.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:34:59.65 | Thomas Theodores | I see. So, gotcha. |
| 00:35:08.12 | Thomas Theodores | And you mentioned in your staff report about the additional eight $240. Do we need to approve that or are you just informing us that that would be spent? |
| 00:35:19.33 | Unknown | That's within the scope. Within the scope that was budgeted for an approved by the council. Right. Good. |
| 00:35:19.34 | Thomas Theodores | That's within the scope. |
| 00:35:24.37 | Ray Withy | wrecked. Thank you. So thank you very much, Lily. So returning to the comment. time that we're in, I think it's really important to emphasize that as we're going through the process of working with the consultant, the M group, and working with the community on this, to clearly understand that there are two separate tracks here, two separate streams. The first stream is... the work that we must do to what Sacramento is looking for. to support the housing element that we've already adopted. Okay? And to actually not do that work, would put our current housing element that has been adopted and that a lot of work went in the past in jeopardy Then the second stream, which is the lower stream, is to take advantage of a Um... a streamlining process that Sacramento is allowed and which every, my understanding is, nearly every city, if not all cities in Marin, are following to actually get their housing elements certified for the next cycle on a streamlined fashion. The committee emphasized that doesn't mean the city is going to do a streamlined effort but it's going to take participate in Sacramento's process. One of the ways in which we can do this, I think very efficiently, is that we spend a long time in the housing element that we just got certified, working on and agreeing on, these multiple strategies which delivered the lowest impact Um... result. You can argue whether Council Member Pfeiffer is going to argue that it doesn't, but That's okay. The point is that we've just had a housing element certified, therefore it makes sense to use the same strategies because they deal with each part of the community, it sort of like spreads it around. The waterfront, the hillside communities, residential communities lower down on the hill. So I think it's really important not to confuse the two streams to understand that if we made a decision not to move ahead with VMU, HMU, we are putting the current housing element potentially in jeopardy. |
| 00:37:57.97 | Unknown | I have some really good questions. Thank you. |
| 00:37:59.41 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 00:37:59.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:37:59.76 | Ray Withy | Yes, sir. |
| 00:37:59.89 | Thomas Theodores | to clarify because I want to re-emphasize what Ray just said. The VMU-HMU vertical mixed use, horizontal mixed use to clarify the public where you're putting different types of uses in the same building both vertically. |
| 00:38:00.01 | Unknown | Mr. Clare. |
| 00:38:16.03 | Thomas Theodores | is part of the current housing element that's already been adopted that we've given our word that we're going to implement. |
| 00:38:20.99 | Mary Wagner | That's correct. |
| 00:38:21.17 | Thomas Theodores | Right. And that this top flow is carrying on the work that we were required to do as part of the current housing element that was adopted. |
| 00:38:29.14 | Unknown | That's correct. |
| 00:38:29.63 | Thomas Theodores | Right. So to say in your, I think your point, just to make sure I understand what you're saying, is to say in the second, in this other housing element cycle, the one in the bottom, structure here, that we're not going to do these plans that we said we were going to do in the first one, kind of just sort of shooting yourself in the foot in some ways. It jeopardizes your old agreement with the state, and you're going to have to come up with some new way of making those requirements. And even though we have much lower numbers in the prospective cycle than we did in the last cycle, is that a fair statement? |
| 00:39:05.71 | Unknown | I think that's correct. The city would have to identify additional units to fill in the units that were created by the VMU and HMU in a similar strategy. |
| 00:39:06.50 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. |
| 00:39:15.98 | Thomas Theodores | That's not to say that staff or the subcommittee isn't going to have conversations with both the M group and about HCD about other creative ways or whether we're over quota or under quota as this unfolds, but given that there's still gonna be conversations with the state, I'm assuming, that we're gonna go back and forth with different ideas. |
| 00:39:38.26 | Jonathon Goldman | Correct. |
| 00:39:40.28 | Thomas Theodores | It's not like we're not just putting a plan in front of them and not having them comment on it early on. |
| 00:39:46.73 | Unknown | That's correct. Thank you. |
| 00:39:47.47 | Thomas Theodores | Right. |
| 00:39:48.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:39:50.34 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, so, and that's okay, Lily. I'm done with my question. So I just wanted to respond to some of the comments that have been made. I want to stress that I respectfully, I understand the difference between the two tracks. I get that one track is pursuing the programs from the housing element that was recently certified And I understand the second track is different, but I'll also remind council that I voted against the housing element and the VMU and HMU was one of the primary reasons. There was a very big outcry from the a large representative of Sausalito regarding the concern that the VMU-HMU zoning amendments would, the small town character of our downtown sections. So that is why, personally, I am, You know, I cannot, if I voted against the housing element, I can't support the VMU-HMU now. because it was one of the reasons I opposed it. |
| 00:40:58.60 | Thomas Theodores | voting on that tonight. |
| 00:41:00.17 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I will actually make a motion to remove this. It's all right. You guys can vote against it, but I need to, for the public record, In fact, I move to remove the VMU-HMU Zoning Ordinance Amendments from the scope of this work. |
| 00:41:19.14 | Unknown | OK. Is there a second? Well, having no seconds. |
| 00:41:27.64 | Thomas Theodores | Just to clarify, were you just voting on that? |
| 00:41:29.30 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. to add another member. |
| 00:41:30.97 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, that's all we really need. And the city council is doing it. I'm within Rosenberg. |
| 00:41:31.02 | Unknown | Yeah, thanks all. Thank you. |
| 00:41:32.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:41:32.94 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 00:41:33.41 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:41:35.86 | Thomas Theodores | I'm within Rosenberg's rules of order to make a motion, Mr. Mayor. |
| 00:41:40.15 | Thomas Theodores | She did, and that's fine. So I'll make a motion that we appoint in January, the council appoint both. Does the Planning Commission have another hearing between now and January? |
| 00:41:40.20 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:41:40.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:41:40.40 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 00:41:48.08 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE is. |
| 00:41:52.63 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, so appoint a member of the Planning Commission and a member of the City Council to the subcommittee. So there are four members total. |
| 00:42:01.88 | Unknown | I'll second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. |
| 00:42:05.27 | Thomas Theodores | I have. |
| 00:42:05.56 | Unknown | All right. |
| 00:42:10.17 | Thomas Theodores | We're voting on the last motion first, right? you |
| 00:42:12.93 | Unknown | you |
| 00:42:14.42 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. So you have to throw a long area. |
| 00:42:17.00 | Thomas Theodores | I voted with the group. I mean, to appoint the council member and the planning commissioner in January, correct? |
| 00:42:23.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:24.01 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:42:24.38 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. Yeah, I'm OK with that, adding that to the subcommittee. |
| 00:42:25.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:25.25 | Unknown | I'm okay with that. Okay. |
| 00:42:29.00 | Thomas Theodores | But I still want to vote on my motion. |
| 00:42:32.48 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 00:42:33.05 | Thomas Theodores | a second to vote on? |
| 00:42:34.53 | Unknown | I did. I second that. Oh, there is. A second is not required. |
| 00:42:35.50 | Thomas Theodores | No, the, oh, there, here is. |
| 00:42:37.86 | Thomas Theodores | Bye. |
| 00:42:37.88 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:42:37.89 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:42:37.91 | Thomas Theodores | It was no second. |
| 00:42:38.96 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:42:39.11 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:42:41.00 | Unknown | There's no second. |
| 00:42:42.68 | Thomas Theodores | the first motion that was made. |
| 00:42:49.01 | Unknown | you |
| 00:42:49.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:49.25 | Unknown | . |
| 00:42:49.32 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:42:49.35 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:42:49.47 | Thomas Theodores | you |
| 00:42:49.55 | Unknown | Thank you. Councilman Fivers, motion. you want a voice role for Thank you. Pfizer. |
| 00:42:57.91 | Thomas Theodores | Yes. |
| 00:43:01.18 | Unknown | Theodorus. Thank you. |
| 00:43:02.46 | Thomas Theodores | No. |
| 00:43:05.77 | Unknown | I don't remember where they |
| 00:43:06.56 | Thomas Theodores | know. |
| 00:43:08.77 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:43:09.38 | Ray Withy | and, you know, the |
| 00:43:14.36 | Unknown | Yeah. I don't know. Okay. Thank you, Lily. Next item that we have is the CDD Project Status Report and Community Development Director Jeremy Graves. |
| 00:43:45.19 | Unknown | Mayor, City Council members, tonight I'll be providing you with the periodic progress report from the Community Development Department. This spans the time frame from the beginning of this year through last month. |
| 00:44:04.36 | Unknown | The Community Development Department supports the City Council plus the six boards, committees, and commissions that are listed on the slide. So we're active in a variety of projects and disciplines for the city. I'd like to provide some highlights for the Planning Division and Building Division. One of the major projects that the Planning Division has been working on this year has been our Accessory Dwelling Unit Ordinance, which was adopted by the Council late last year. It has been very successful. As you recall, there are two components of it, the Amnesty Dwelling Unit Program, which will expire expire next March and to date we have received 24 applications for the amnesty program. We have approved five of those and 19 of those are still pending. We have approved, we have five applications for the administrative accessory dwelling unit program and then the planning commission has approved one accessory dwelling unit that went to it for conditional use permit. So just to reiterate, any property owner who may be interested in applying for the amnesty program, anyone who is listening, we certainly encourage you to contact the community development department before March of next year in order to maintain your eligibility for the amnesty |
| 00:44:26.96 | Unknown | TO THIS. |
| 00:45:13.09 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:45:30.64 | Unknown | Another project that we have coming up is the environmental review for the Valhalla Residential Condominium Project, the draft environmental report, the initial environmental study mitigated negative declaration. We're anticipating that the public document will be available in February of this year. Also in February of this year, we're anticipating the neighborhood historical study will will be released that provides a synopsis of the historic components of the different development phases within Sausalito for the last 100 years. And it provides a basis for the HLB and decision makers to be able to make determinations on the historic significance of the different properties and the residences and commercial buildings in town. We also are initiating historic preservation regulations. We are working on having a kickoff meeting for that in the coming weeks. And then we have two vacant planner positions, which are currently filled by contract planners, Steve Padavan and Rafael Miranda. And we have initiated the recruitment of permanent assistant planner position. Looking at our building division highlights, one of the projects we have coming up at your next meeting, the first meeting in January will be California Building Code amendments that will be comparable to the fire code amendments that the council approved last month. We also have ongoing accessibility training for our building inspector to ensure that he is fully aware of our accessibility requirements and responsibilities as administrators of the California Building Code. We are also in the process of instituting new accessibility and new procedures for investigating complaints on accessibility. And then early last month, we hired a new permit technician, Brian Palin. With regard to our public service highlights, we have a very well qualified and trained staff. We have a heavy emphasis on transparency and communications and I think the Commission and the Council benefit from that as an example of the email list that staff maintains for the different major projects that we have going on such as the housing element, the marineship, and our staff has developed through an outreach program that has developed an extensive mailing list so that property owners and interested parties are directed to updates to our website and as well as agendas and staff reports for those respective meetings. |
| 00:48:13.89 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:48:34.48 | Unknown | Our Planning Commission summary, we had a total of 27 design review permits that were reviewed by the Planning Commission. They fall into a variety of categories, residential, commercial, and public. And then we also, our next largest type of permit that the Planning Commission reviewed are the conditional use permits. We had 11 different projects that required conditional use permits. and then also the planning commission, just another handful of different animals that the planning commission becomes involved in in the different roles that they maintain. Some of the more visible projects that the planning commission acted upon this year. One was, we have obviously the Licee Francaise. One that got a little attention this year was the mural, the Mosaic mural that was on the Bank of America and also happened to make a front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle last month. That was a fun project for Thank you. America and also happened to make a front page article in the San Francisco Chronicle last month. That was a fun project for associate planner Heidi Scoble to work on. It was a remodel that had been put on this William Worcester building when it was constructed in 1956, hidden by a remodel in 1972, and here we are in 2013 and it reappears. And the mayor has had the opportunity to review its restoration in progress on a daily basis THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 00:50:10.99 | Unknown | Thank you. Where those letters, when you see those letters, the large letters say Bank of America and the smaller letters say Sausalito. |
| 00:50:20.28 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:20.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:20.50 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 00:50:20.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:20.99 | Unknown | you |
| 00:50:21.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:50:21.33 | Unknown | So it does give us a mid-century approach. I should say northern cattle, but. |
| 00:50:24.99 | Unknown | I should say northern. |
| 00:50:27.46 | Unknown | The way finding signs at the bottom of the list here, the clinic, that one. |
| 00:50:30.49 | Thomas Theodores | SPEAKER 1, 2, 3, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 4, 3, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11, 11 |
| 00:50:33.72 | Unknown | Yeah, precisely. Or whatever. Yeah, precisely. So the wayfinding signs were reviewed by the Planning Commission last month. This is a project in association with the Department of Public Works as authorized by the Council as well as the Chamber of Commerce. It will be returning to the Planning Commission for review early next year. The Historic Landmarks Board reviewed the projects that we see up above. And then also, as the Council is aware, you appointed two new members, Bernie Feeney and Natasha Frazier. So now we have a fully appointed Historic Landmarks Board, which allows for more efficient processing of projects, because we can easily attain a quorum. Our trees and views committee initiated the tip of the month notation that now we see in the current publication that our city clerk puts out. And looking at the larger projects that we're working on, I think we've already covered most of the items that are identified in our housing element slide here. Just to emphasize once again, we have to have a housing element over to the Department of Housing and Community Development by January 2015. That point will be here so quick, it's going to make all of our heads move. So we're going to have to do all of our best to staff, public, subcommittee, come to the meetings prepared to participate, have your questions identified so that we can make efficient use of our time at these meetings. We also have, these are the ordinance amendments that are listed here, these five ordinance amendments. These are going to be contentious. Aside from the VMU, HMU regulations, we have the emergency shelters, which is going to be a stormy run at that, but it is something that is required of the cities since the early 2000s and is, of course, required. It's part of the conditions that we agreed to in HCD's, that we accepted in HCD's conditional certification of our housing element. If we don't do this, our housing, our current housing element could fall out of certification. So it is extremely important that we come prepared to our meetings and ready to make decisions on this. It's going to be a tough issue. |
| 00:51:41.84 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:52:37.49 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:53:16.22 | Unknown | And of course, our housing element is predicated on our three-part strategy of live aboards, of accessory dwelling units, and infill. |
| 00:53:27.95 | Unknown | Our multifamily standards update, something administrative analyst Lely Shinsing has been working on, of course, is to restrict the new large single family dwellings on multifamily parcels and to restrict the conversion of existing multifamily residences on these parcels. We have a number of... past that of our rules. reviews by Planning Commission subcommittee, the Planning Commission hearings, City Council hearings this summer and then last night the Legislative Committee wrapped up its work on this and forwarded the draft ordinance over to the Planning Commission. So the next steps the Planning Commission will be taking will be public hearings in the January, February timeframe, eventually moving over to City Council public hearings for adoption of this in the January, February time frame, eventually moving over to City Council public hearings for adoption of this in the February, March time frame. Then moving over to the Marineship specific plan, priority number 11 on the priority calendar. Earlier, it was last week that the steering committee held its field visit with the consultant to the Marineship. and then next month the consultant will be initiating, pardon the term, stakeholder interviews with the target of its final report to be provided this summer. |
| 00:55:04.58 | Unknown | The upcoming priorities certainly include several of the items I've already mentioned, but I also want to call out the completion of the neighborhood historical study will be coming up. And that was also partially funded by a grant that we received from the State Office of Historic Preservation. And then in February 7th, the State Historic Resources Commission is scheduled to consider the city's nomination of the machine shop to the National Register. So we're certain, and the staff at the Office of Historic Preservation has reviewed it and found it ready to move forward for consideration by the State Historic Resources Commission. Moving over to building, I've already mentioned the adoption of the construction codes next month, and that is on the priority calendar. Moving over to code enforcement, code enforcement is one of these interesting things that you never know what's going to come, what we get. The code enforcement forms are yellow forms and they come into the inbox and you never know what's going to be attached to it. This is one up on Wolfback Ridge. It has for the most part been resolved. |
| 00:56:14.66 | Unknown | one of these interesting things that I knew |
| 00:56:16.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:56:35.82 | Unknown | And, you know, we still have portable signs. As you can see, one of our largest category that we spend, that staff spends the most time is signs without a permit. We have closed out 25 cases on that this year. And we're hoping with the wayfinding sign moving forward in our association with the Chamber of Commerce that businesses that are a little more off the beaten path such on Caledonia and on Princess Street will feel that they have proper publicity directing visitors and residents to their businesses, and they'll be able to feel less inclined to put portable signs out. So that's the conclusion of our presentation, and we're available for questions. |
| 00:57:42.73 | Unknown | Any questions? |
| 00:57:43.68 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a question. |
| 00:57:44.60 | Unknown | That's... Thank you. We're going to go one at a time and go around. |
| 00:57:48.23 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So Jeremy, since it triggered a question when I saw the photo, it's about I think one or two slides back of the, yeah, no, forward. Yep. the bicycle shop. Can you comment on, because I've noticed these structures being put in place where they're supposed to be parking. So is that an example of following? |
| 00:58:10.20 | Unknown | Exactly. A couple of issues here. Obviously, this particular merchant on this day was blocking off three parking spaces here. I think this is a rack and then obviously a display here. And so we follow our standard code enforcement process on this, send them a courtesy notice. On something like this that is set up every day and broken down every day, our courtesy notice says you may not be aware of it, but you're not allowed to block off required parking spaces with a display like this. you have 10 days to stop doing it. And if they haven't stopped doing it, then we send them a compliance order which gives them another 10 days. After that, we can be issuing them a citation under the administrative provisions of our municipal code. We have not issued citations for this. |
| 00:58:45.03 | Unknown | you may not be aware of it, but you're not aware of it. Thank you. to block Thank you. Thank you. THE END OF THE END OF THE Thank you. Thank you. |
| 00:58:58.94 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:59:00.27 | Thomas Theodores | you |
| 00:59:08.81 | Thomas Theodores | Thanks for the update, Jeremy. It's good to know that city staff you know, is on this because I'd forgotten about it when I saw the photo. It was like, oh, my gosh, I've been meaning to say something. Thank you. |
| 00:59:22.09 | Unknown | Any other questions here? |
| 00:59:24.55 | Thomas Theodores | One tidbit question. You had a Bridgeway Parklet as one of your, what's the Bridgeway Parklet? It was one of your bullet points. that. |
| 00:59:32.86 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 00:59:34.04 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 00:59:34.05 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:59:34.07 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Oh, on the side of the parking space. Correct. The parking space is the parkway. |
| 00:59:35.86 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 00:59:35.99 | Unknown | in the parking space. All right. The status of that is the application is incomplete right now. We're working with Mike Monsef, and he's active. He's the liaison with the property. I'm trying to bring him something. I had forgotten that was called a... It's still incomplete. |
| 00:59:47.57 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. I had forgotten that was called a... It was still incomplete. Yeah, I had forgotten that's called a |
| 00:59:53.04 | Unknown | Parkland. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Any questions? At this time here, any questions from the public on this item? Okay, let's bring it back up for comment. This is just information so we don't really have to... |
| 01:00:11.84 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have comments. |
| 01:00:13.17 | Unknown | Go ahead. We'll get choked up over it now. |
| 01:00:15.99 | Thomas Theodores | Don't get choked up over it now. Come back to me. I need some water. |
| 01:00:20.56 | Unknown | Okay. Well, as I said, this is informational only. There's no action required. So we'll wait a second here. And let me comment also that, and as you know, I'm down here. quite a bit. down at City Hall. and For the last two, three weeks, I can only really comment that what good comments I am getting from the service and how you expedite things at the desk. I really want to compliment you and your staff. for something that I think we're starting to hear more and more. at City Hall about how they're being handled, and that's on a positive note. So thank you very, very much. |
| 01:01:10.97 | Unknown | Thank you, Mayor. I'll be happy to pass it along to staff. |
| 01:01:13.57 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:01:13.85 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:01:14.51 | Thomas Theodores | And I'll just say, while Linda's gathering herself, when you're ready, is that, you know, it looks like you're busy, which is a good sign. This is sort of a sign of the economic vitality of the housing stock in Sausalito. And it's a good harbinger for our revenue base from property taxes, certainly the more permits that you're processing properly. There's no, and you are doing that. We haven't attended a planning commission meeting recently. That it's, as our financial reporting system catches up to your, the permit processing system, we'll be able to get kind of a way to view our property taxes down the road a little bit better. And I think Charlie and you are working on that, and that'll be a good next step in sort of a forecasting tool for the council to use. Okay. Linda? |
| 01:01:16.62 | Unknown | So. |
| 01:02:00.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:02:06.27 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:02:07.31 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, Jeremy, I just wanted to especially thank you in calling out the progress with the accessory dwelling units. That's great to see that our, you know, predictions for the housing element are following, you know, following through. And, and appreciate the work of your staff with respect to that. That's very exciting to see. as well as the update with the historic preservation regulations, too. The progress with that is wonderful. So thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:02:39.39 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:02:40.46 | Thomas Theodores | Oh, and the permit technician as well. Good to see that. |
| 01:02:44.32 | Unknown | Okay. With that, thank you very much, Jeremy. Okay, moving along next, the receive and file comprehensive annual financial report for fiscal year ending June 30. Charlie Francis, follow the money. |
| 01:03:07.57 | Unknown | Let's see. I put a copy of the, a hard copy of the annual financial report on the dais. |
| 01:03:19.51 | Unknown | Debbie got her copy earlier. |
| 01:03:24.89 | Unknown | We have only tonight ten copies of the annual financial report. The rest will come at the end of the week. However, it is available online, and there will be two copies in the library so that staff, I mean the public can put it on the library or read it at the library. Oh, thank you, Doug. So I want to start off the presentation about the annual financial report by giving special recognition and thanks to Susan Frank and to Marge Badger who provided the inspiration for the picture and then actually provided the picture for us from the Sausalito Historical Society. And this is the same picture that was used on the cover of the information booklet that Susan Frank and the Sausalito Historical Society prepared for the students. So and then on the inside cover of the hard document, we gave recognition to the Sausalito Historical Society. And since I didn't think it was appropriate to have the American flag and my normal logo on the front page, I did put it on the inside cover that still sooner or later it always does come down to money. It's there, just a little hidden this year. This presentation tonight is just to go over the financial highlights of the year for you to receive and file the annual financial report and ask some questions if you have any on the specifics. Interesting, this is a financial report of how much money was spent as of and for the year ended June 30, 2013. doesn't give you a great picture of what we spent the money on. And that's why I really like these community development, quarterly reports, the public works reports, and the police reports. Because then the city council and the community get a feeling on how we're taking taxes from the community and using that resource to provide services and capital improvements to the community. Tonight's talking points basically are to answer the three questions that that we usually get from citizens. And these three questions in a technical standpoint would be, what is the financial condition, what is the financial position, and what's the financial outlook? But what the community is really asking is, can we pay our bills? And this is a summary of what I'm going to be saying tonight, and say that we can pay our bills. We're stable. It was our 2009 strategic plan goal to stabilize the finances. And since 2009, we've been able to pay our bills. We're in stable financial condition. But in 2011, we changed our strategic plan goal and said we want to be sustainable. We want to have the revenue structure and the expenditure structure in place that we can sustain the way we do business as we go off into the future. And our financial position at June 30 slightly improved as measured by growth in net assets and unassigned fund balance. And so we can say we're continuing to pay our bills and we're sustainable. We've met that goal. And then last year in our strategic planning, we set a strategic planning goal of being resilient. And as we go through, we're seeing that the strategies that we've been implementing over the past two years are manifesting positive results. We can see that in this financial report. We can see it in the upcoming budget and in our 10-year financial plan. And I can say that we're resilient. We're resilient for the level of service that we're providing and for the capital improvements that we're resilient. We're resilient for the level of service that we're providing and for the capital improvements that we're providing. If we want more capital improvements or if we want to increase levels of service, then we're not resilient. We're going to have to find more resources in order to do that. So first of all, a CAFR, a comprehensive annual financial report, is a comprehensive way of looking on our assets, liabilities, fund balances, and retained earnings. And that's at a point in time. That's at June 30. It's a snapshot. Where do we stand on that date? July 1st and June 28th would be completely different pictures based on bills coming in and revenues. I mean, bills going out and revenues coming in. But it's typically, and it's required by law, that we have to have a financial report as of June 30. And then we use June 30 because it's the California fiscal year for local governments. And then it's a picture of what happened between July 1st of 2012 and June 30 of 2013 in terms of revenues and expenditures. And all that gets reported through what we call the financial reporting pyramid that looks at all of our funds and account groups. We just don't have one set of books. We actually have about 30 sets of books. 30 sets of assets, liabilities, fund balances, revenues and earnings all be accounted for as if each one was its own separate company. But through the use of software we were able to keep it all within one global enterprise system. And at the, where did the pyramid go? |
| 01:08:32.60 | Unknown | Well, in your packet there was a pyramid, and the pyramid shows all this stuff that comes from transactions and then goes into the accounting system. The accounting system is combined into one of these funds, and you finally get one report out of all that. At the very top of the pyramid is what's called the statement of net position. This report is prepared the exact same way that a major corporation, Fortune 500 company, produce a full accrual basis and it records the assets, liabilities and the net position. And it's the whole entity, all the governmental activities, which includes the general fund and all of our business type activities like our sewer enterprise fund, our MLK enterprise fund, our parking enterprise fund. So and then with a total column over here. At the same time it says, so that's the point in time, that's the snapshot balance sheet, picture June 30. And then the next, you can find these on pages 20 and 21 of your annual financial report. |
| 01:09:36.68 | Unknown | This is the statement of the activities then. So CAFRs are important because it's standardized format. Whether you're an investor or whether you're in the bond market or whether you're the state of California, a vendor, you can look at a CAFR from the city of Sausalito, the city of San Francisco. You can look at the county of San Luis Obispo. It's going to be prepared in a similar fashion so that you can start comparing and understanding all the financial statements from a common framework. So it's important and it's standardized and it's prescribed by the governmental accounting standard boards which is the equivalent of FASB, the financial accounting standard board, as well as other auto principles. So one of the questions that citizens would ask is, well, is this financial report reliable? And first of all, we do have an independent report. It's on page one, an independent auditor's report. They were audited by Maize & Associates, a firm of CPAs. They issued an unmodified opinion, which is a clean opinion. It's the highest opinion that a city can receive. There were no matters of internal control over financial reporting that were considered to be material weaknesses. So it's kind of like management are doing things the right way. And there was no instances of noncompliance or reportable conditions. So basically what they're saying is we can rely on the financial statements. Now, the auditors aren't saying whether the financial statements are the good condition or bad condition. That's our responsibility, management's responsibility. The auditors are saying what you see has been tested and you can rely on the results. So the next question then is, I stated earlier in the summary, that can we pay our bills? And I look at that by saying, are our operating inflows able to cover our operating outflows? And is the city financially prepared for contingencies? In other words, do we have reserves out there? And this is a summary that if we wanted to, I could walk you through where this can be found on each page in the financial statements. But our revenues exceeded our expenditures in the general fund by $521,000. The general fund is the primary operating fund of the city. It's where general property taxes, sales taxes, transit occupancy taxes, business license taxes, all come into in order to provide the fire service, the public works maintenance, the recreation services, the library services, and of course the management and support of all those outward based activities. Our fund balance increased by two, our unassigned fund balance increased by $225,000 over the prior year. THE END OF THE We spent $2,330,000 on capital improvements during the year, but at the same time we brought in resources in order to to spend that of $1.7 million. So in other words, we used resources that we'd collected in previous years in order to provide $2.3 million of capital projects now. And our business type activities, our operating income, that's operating revenue, operating expenses increased by $2.1 million. Now out of that $2.1, you have to pay debt service, things like that. But the operating inflow exceeded the operating outflow. We can pay our bills. Our reserves are strong. Our general fund reserves are $8.9 million. Our unassigned reserves are 2.1 with an economic fluctuation reserve of $700,000. Those two combined, the 2.1, and the 717,000 here combined about 2.8 million, and that's 22% of the general fund expenditures on there. So that's a very strong operating reserve position for any California city. Our total fund balances for all government activities are 9.7, this includes capital projects fund, the Tideland Fund and other special revenue funds. And our current assets exceed our current liabilities in their business type activities by $2 million. So all very good indications that we can pay our bill. check mark up there. Finally our financial position. So some of the things we look at again is, well, what does it happen to our fund balance over time? And you can see this is the liquid portion of our fund balance has been, let's see, we're going to look at the fund balance. |
| 01:14:27.67 | Unknown | It's the liquid percentage of fund balance has been growing to about total, you know, 35%. This is looking at all reserves of the city that are liquid in terms of the general fund fund balance. It's going up to 30%. And then these are the components of fund balance. The red down here shows back in these years, we had a negative position of liquid reserves. And now the blue and the green is the illiquid portion of our reserves. And the light blue and purple up here is the more liquid component. So we're growing our reserves, and we're growing the liquid portion of our reserves. Other indicators of financial strength is our assessed value of taxable property. Well, we took a dip during the recession where property values did not grow as fast as they did pre-recession. And at one point we even had a negative growth. First time it ever happened in California history where the lesser of 2% inflation was actually negative. But it's coming back and property values are increasing. And our outstanding debt is decreasing as well. one of the major factors of decreasing our outstanding debt was paying off the general obligation bonds. And during this fiscal year, we also paid off our pension side funds for the police, I don't know, for the police, for the fire and for the miscellaneous employees. So in general, there was another, Our ability to continue to pay our bills is sustainable. We're growing our revenues. Our investment in FIST assets is growing. We're reducing our liabilities, and we're reducing future costs of doing business. And so as a finance director, I'm giving a check that our ability to pay our bills is getting better. And finally, what's our likelihood, what's our outlook for the future? What's our economic condition? And we covered this very intensely at our latest last strategic planning meeting with the city council. And I just wanted to give a brief summary for the public. that we've moved, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, from where we had negative fund balances and we were in unstable condition all the way now where we're thinking strategically. As we think strategically, that's the goal, we remain resilient. And so it's a journey that we've been on for the past five years. And I could answer the question, we're resilient, yes. But our current levels of service are adequately funded and they're adequately funded for the next 10 years. The budget is structurally balanced and sustainable for the next 10 years at the current level of service. And reserve balance are sufficiently funded and they're funded on a risk analysis and mitigation strategy that allows us to be resilient, to use reserves during economic bad times and then increase those reserves during economic good times. |
| 01:16:29.69 | Unknown | We've moved. |
| 01:17:23.68 | Unknown | But we have significant infrastructure investment that's needed. We have infrastructure that was designed the last 50 years, and it's been in the ground for 80 or 90 years, and without proper maintenance to it, too. So we have some infrastructure investment needed, and there's some demands for increased levels of service coming from the community and internally. And if we want to fund those, we're going to have to move to a different funding model. That funding model for infrastructure investment could look like from moving from a pay-as-you-go for these kinds of facilities to a public willingness to pay by looking at different strategies. For example, we'll be considering looking at our sewer and our storm drains in the near future. And if we have to increase rates, then we would have to be looking at a Prop 218 hearing. We probably could look for revenue bonds to help support that so we don't have to take all the money out of the community right away, but we could just take enough to pay debt service on revenue bonds and all other kinds of ways. These are just examples of ways of moving from a pay as you go to a public willingness to pay model of infrastructure investment. |
| 01:18:10.82 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:18:36.46 | Unknown | To address increasing levels of service we could also move from a pay as you go to a public willingness to pay. What these charts try to demonstrate is the departments that are 100% fee funded, the departments that are 50% or less fee funded, and then the departments that are funded almost entirely from taxes, general property tax, sales tax, period of occupancy tax. So for example, our recreation budget right now is about 50% funded from recreation fees and it's been considered, it's been a big improvement over the past four years. And so, and our community development department is fee funded. The building division is 100% fee funded. Current planningTS ARE ABOUT 90% FUNDED. FUTURE PLANNING EFFORTS CAN ALSO BE FEE-FUNDED BY DOING CERTAIN KINDS OF SUPPORT The police right now is 25% funded by fines and grants. We can start, and parking revenues, and we can start looking at ways to try to find some offsets for taxation with the police department. But these are just concepts that we talked about at the strategic planning session. And concepts that we have to communicate is that, We're resilient at our current level of service. We're resilient at our current level of capital investment. If we want more capital investment, if we want higher levels of service, then we would have to look for additional revenue, additional resources from the community. We're continually looking at ongoing strategic activities. We're looking at ways to increase our assets performance and optimize our revenue base, improve equity. This is just a summary of the slide that was at our strategic planning and certainly willing to answer any questions from that. I don't know. But I think because we go through this activity, because we do long-term financial planning and modeling. that we can say that there's a strong likelihood that our financial position will improve in the future. |
| 01:20:41.30 | Unknown | So in summary, we can pay our bills, we're stable, we can continue to pay our bills, we're sustainable, and the outlook for the future is resilient at the current level of service and the current level of capital investment. And happy to answer any questions that you have. |
| 01:20:57.10 | Unknown | Okay, any questions up here? |
| 01:20:58.36 | Unknown | Oh, tonight's action is only received and filed. |
| 01:21:01.28 | Unknown | Yeah, no action required. |
| 01:21:02.95 | Unknown | We can. |
| 01:21:03.03 | Thomas Theodores | quiet. |
| 01:21:03.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:03.56 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:21:05.19 | Unknown | See you. |
| 01:21:05.65 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:21:05.67 | Thomas Theodores | that. Charlie, I understand that the cities received CalPERS latest actuarial valuation. Can you tell us when that'll be available in public and when we'll get a report to the council? |
| 01:21:18.04 | Unknown | Sure. We did receive our annual evaluation. CalPERS is a little strange. They published the latest annual actuarial evaluation over a year prior. So the evaluation for June 30, 2012 was just issued right after Thanksgiving of 2013. The next finance committee meeting is a week from tomorrow. And at that finance committee Committee meeting I'll be going over the Finance Committee the preliminary analysis that I did on that evaluation report and afterwards we will post the evaluation up to the website along with that analysis so that the public and citizens can also in full City Council can see that and in January, we'll come back to the full city council with a complete presentation, including from with our actuary, to go over the CalPERS annual actuary evaluation. Okay. |
| 01:22:13.13 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, do I have a follow-up question? So you said that you will share the CalPERS actuarial report with the Finance Committee which meets during the week, during the day. |
| 01:22:13.91 | Unknown | I have a phone. |
| 01:22:24.62 | Thomas Theodores | When will you post that than the same day as that committee. for the public. |
| 01:22:32.25 | Unknown | Well, as soon as I can. I mean, it might be Thursday or Friday. Okay. But it would definitely be next week. |
| 01:22:35.19 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, I guess. Thank you, Charlie. A follow-up question is, Would it be possible to send copies to the whole council, you know, the day of the Finance Committee so we would have at the same time? Thank you. |
| 01:22:46.70 | Unknown | So, |
| 01:22:46.97 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:47.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:48.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:48.37 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:22:48.47 | Unknown | Thank you. OK. Questions? Questions? This time here, any questions from the public? Public's quiet tonight. Okay, let's... Because we've already heard this. |
| 01:23:01.48 | Thomas Theodores | We've already heard this at the finance committee level. But, Charlie, in terms of your meeting with auditors and how the audit went, you know, you just got a clean opinion, but as far as... So what I think is important for the public to know that the auditors, the auditing profession has changed immensely over the last couple of decades, certainly the last decade. And they're really paying very close attention to what to testing your accounts. And I just want you to give a quick statement on how the audit went. |
| 01:23:33.91 | Unknown | The Sovereign-Soxley was an act that was passed by the United States Congress that changed the way auditors did business. They put a lot of the burden for annual financial reporting back on the governing body and accordingly auditors spent time interviewing the finance committee to make sure that, and they were private conversations, they weren't conversations that the city manager or the finance director sat in on. That's what kind of access auditors demand from that point to. They also interview management and management makes certain assertions then that are tested. They test on a more detailed basis than they did prior to sovereigns actually but it's you know there are 30 different funds here so they have to test based on a risk basis. Where is the greatest opportunity for fraud? So they would look at that. Where is the largest amount of transactions going through where an error can occur so they examine those kinds of transactions and they they review all the minutes of the City Council meetings throughout the year and then if anything came up in one of those meetings then they ask questions about it and go into it. It's quite an involved process. There's a pre-audit period before the fiscal year ends where they come in and do a substantial amount of transaction testing. They pull revenue receipts and expenditure details and make sure that all the internal controls were followed. The signatures authority there was the purchase order issued in accordance with the purchase requirements. Was the revenue recorded by one person and deposited by another person and they go through and they test all those transactions and then following the closing of the books they come in and they did management then prepare the financial statements in accordance with the the way they should be. Was there any attempt to hide anything? And one of the discussions that came up was the recording of a certain liability. I didn't feel like this was a liability. I thought it was more of an annual expense. And so it wasn't in our preliminary draft that we gave to the auditors. But of course, reading through the contracts, they saw this annual expense and they said, we think it should be a liability. So we engaged to then in a discussion about it. We referred back to the authoritative sources, the pronouncements, the promulgations of GASB and the AICPA and we determined it was a liability so we recorded it accordingly on the books. It's a process that should give our citizens a lot of assurance that they can rely on financial statements. |
| 01:24:55.27 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 01:26:02.73 | Unknown | of GASB. Yeah. |
| 01:26:21.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:21.30 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:26:21.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 01:26:23.09 | Unknown | All right. Once again, any comment from the public? You getting this now for the Women's Club now? Okay. All right. Then, Shelley, thank you very, very much for another excellent report. You did a heck of a job this year. |
| 01:26:41.50 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:45.16 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:26:45.58 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. |
| 01:26:49.16 | Unknown | Go ahead. |
| 01:26:49.56 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. So in reviewing this, I think I just want to reiterate my hope that |
| 01:26:49.61 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:26:58.12 | Thomas Theodores | that this council will support a 10-year strategic analysis for financial sustainability. because as we know the pension debt is only growing. Our pension liabilities and retirement costs, medical costs, and I think we know some of the rocky road ahead because we know the policy that we're going to be facing. with CalPERS, and I think it's only prudent that we do so. |
| 01:27:28.24 | Unknown | That's why we moved away from merging with the Fire Department, so we could shake a lot of that, and I believe we have. Okay. With that, we'll move on to the next item, and that's receive, let's see. Mr. Mayor. Yes. |
| 01:27:44.83 | Thomas Theodores | And Mr. Mayor. I just want to respond that, as you know, in my opinion, we did not... bypass our pension liabilities and pension debts with annexation. Far from it. |
| 01:27:59.58 | Unknown | Let's not give him his discussion. Thank you. |
| 01:28:04.59 | Thomas Theodores | have a discussion on pension, of our pension obligations in January, February will be on the agenda. you |
| 01:28:10.97 | Unknown | All right. |
| 01:28:11.17 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:28:11.20 | Unknown | you All right. Next item we have is the. Gate 5 intersection improvements, status updates. I'm not sure. |
| 01:28:23.14 | Thomas Theodores | Todd, good to see you. |
| 01:28:24.03 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 01:28:24.05 | Thomas Theodores | Yes. |
| 01:28:25.07 | Tai Fichau | I thought you were going to get a haircut. Pleasure to be in front of your body. It's been a while. I've missed being here, believe it or not. Thank you, Jonathan, for allowing me to, not offering up an introduction. My name is Tai Fichau. I'm now a consulting civil engineer working for you all trying to advance a few projects. And for you tonight is a status update on a project called the Gate 6 Road Intersection of Presence. For those of you who may not know, this is a grant-funded This is a grant funded project. It's a standard grant funded project so we get 88% support from the state. But what it's doing is it's advancing some concepts that had been originally developed through a long term planning study called the Bridge Way to, yeah, Gate 6 Road to Ferry Landing improvement or improvement. |
| 01:28:25.09 | Unknown | Mr. Mayor. The President. |
| 01:28:26.97 | Thomas Theodores | It's a pleasure to be in the prime here. . |
| 01:28:31.98 | Davin Rose | I don't know. |
| 01:28:32.25 | Thomas Theodores | I'm not sure. |
| 01:28:49.24 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:28:49.36 | Unknown | you |
| 01:29:13.62 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:13.64 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:13.74 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:29:19.13 | Unknown | DUE. |
| 01:29:35.68 | Tai Fichau | feasibility study, I'm sorry. And that feasibility study identified several alternatives for improvements at this site. So we got resources from Caltrans to study it in detail. And this is to present you our initial detail findings and to afford you an opportunity to comment on them as we go out to public comment. The goal is we're going to take comment and then come back to you to synthesize those and recommendations. |
| 01:30:13.40 | Thomas Theodores | Todd, would you like us to hold our questions to the end or ask? |
| 01:30:13.58 | Tai Fichau | What time would you like? |
| 01:30:18.09 | Tai Fichau | This is the bird's eye view of the intersection. It is the gateway to the city. 101, Bridge Boulevard, Bridge Way, and then Gate 6 Road. The city limit is actually the south leg. Caltrans and Marin County were collaborating with to advance this project we've known a couple times. will need their help to advance this to a final project. Now here's an indication of I guess the big problem driving this is southbound movement. There's a multi-use path, as many of you know, making this technically a five-legged intersection. |
| 01:31:06.13 | Unknown | South. |
| 01:31:15.82 | Tai Fichau | The intersection from Gate 6 Road to the intersection just doesn't have any sort of indications for left turns. So anybody who's familiar, and even if you are familiar, you're always wondering if you're going to get run over or smacked. So, um... The goal of this project minimally is to try to get some indications here so that the people coming from Gate 6 know when they have the right of way. So we also have the northbound direction going. You know, we're focusing on bikes, but we're also mindful of the importance of the intersection to motorists't want any of the improvements that get proposed to degrade significantly the operations for motor vehicles. or for pedestrians. This is an important link between Marin City and Saucinito, and we don't want to impair that as well. Here are photographs of the bicyclists approach into the bike lane going northbound. Like I said, the starting point was the ferry landing to Gate 6 Road feasibility study. That report had four options, which I'll go into in a brief while. Thank you. A little more detail in a minute. We had some conversations with Caltrans and they suggested an option that hadn't been included. We also had had some conversations with Caltrans about an option, another option that was evaluated and not advanced to a good degree. That would be called a scramble, a diagonal crossing of the intersection. So here are uh, This is hard to really present. We're looking at signal intersection improvements, but Those improvements are kind of a combination of the lights, the indicators, as well as some ground level changes. We've come up with six alternatives. the ground level improvements for the first one. What this does is improves left turn lane It creates some sharrows here. It modifies a ramp. Thank you. It does put an electronic indicator on the signal. but it preserves the current movements along the multi-use path and and it doesn't really address how cyclists get from here to here to here. Thank you. Um, Bridgeway at this intersection is also interesting because there's a multi-use path here. Um... There is a multi-use path here. So, The recreational or tourist cyclists have two options that they may or may not know Um, that they have that ability. But many people know that there's a class two bike path that was installed in 2004 and is working very well. |
| 01:34:43.36 | Tai Fichau | What this alternative does is it adds a class two bike lane on Gate 6 Road. Right now, it's just two lanes. The center line lane is a combination through and left, and the shoulder side is a right-turn lane. It adds sharrows to guide cyclists through the intersection. I think it reverses... Uh, the indications here so that This creates what's now a through and left over here becomes an exclusive left and changes this to a through and a right. |
| 01:35:34.76 | Tai Fichau | It protects the left-turn movements, but it can't be concurrent with crosswalks. Caltrans is requesting that we try to... to make this crossing fully protected so that when a pedestrian pushes the push by, they won't have to worry about right turning cars from bridge or right turning cars from bridgeway onto Gate 6 Road. This and all the options, there are components that can be mixed and matched. The second alternative is called the gate 6 road connector. of the feasibility study recommendation. What it does is it gives some signage indication to southbound cyclists so that those Approaching the intersection had the ability to ride onto the frontage road and the gate 6.5 road and turn. more rationally, more conventionally from gate 6 might make a right turn on to gate 3. from gate six and a half to gate six and then left turn. Right now, as many of you know, they just do whatever they think they can get away with. A lot of people doing U-turns from here to here. And luckily it's so light, it hasn't been a huge safety problem, but it is illegal. |
| 01:37:05.55 | Unknown | in |
| 01:37:10.60 | Tai Fichau | The features of – and here's a close-up of the movement. It creates a bike box, so we put some more sensitive detectors here, and it gives some exclusive area for cyclists to queue before the signal moves. It keeps the charrows, the intersection, and it keeps the protected left turns that are also shown from the first one. Um... This next one is a pretty drastic change from what is existing now. It's called the bike signal option. And it creates a... a queue zone, widens the sidewalk, in the here and allows bikes to cue in advance of the intersection and then there's a signal modification to create bike-only signals. And they would get some time to move from here to here exclusively. All the other legs would be held back. Bye. It creates, which is unusual in this region, at least in an intersection, a few cities are starting to put colored pavement along the straighter parts of bike paths, but this is one going right through the intersection. That's pretty unusual. |
| 01:38:59.74 | Tai Fichau | This option would at moments, right now there's a free right turn lane from gate 6 to 101. There would be moments where there would be a red arrow preventing those right turns from happening when this movement is going. |
| 01:39:28.21 | Tai Fichau | I think I just discussed all those things. The fourth alternative is somewhat similar to the alternative two, except instead of going to gate 6 1⁄2 road, bicyclists are directed to an improvement to this pathway, and they go up the pathway and then go from gate 6 1⁄2 to the to the bike box where I turn. Like Alternative 2 adds Spike Fox, it adds Cheros, it adds the protected, but what it also does is it makes some improvements to the walkway, which is right now in asphalt. I wouldn't call it quite a sidewalk, but it functions as that. A bike box, a specific bike box alternative, fairly simple. It preserves a lot of the operations right now as far as how cyclists get from here to here. you It adds sharrows and it keeps these improvements for the light box. It's pretty simple. And finally, Alternative six is right now there's a striped gore So cars coming from 101 wanting to go into Marin City can just roll right in without stopping. Hopefully they'll yield. But what this does is it modifies that striped island and puts a raised island and allows a refuge for bicyclists and gives them the opportunity to cross the intersection on the northerly side of the intersection. Right now, there's no ability for that to happen. There's... There is currently no sidewalk on the northerly side of bridge, so this might be the beginning, the very early beginning, of some longer-term improvements. getting a crossing underneath there. and I think that's a good thing. It adds colored pavements. When cyclists – you know, this would be only for bicyclists. We don't know how effective that would be because pedestrians kind of have a mind of their own. If they see a good crossing, they're going to take it. There might be some opportunity for them to use this as a northbound crossroad. |
| 01:42:16.00 | Tai Fichau | Um, So those are kind of a snapshot of where we are with the alternatives. We've sent these alternatives right now to the Marin County and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. We sent it to the Marin Center for Independent Living. We will send, we'll put a couple copies in the library. We'll be sending out notices. to the public of the availability of the report on our website. And those who don't have access will advise them where to go. Either we can send them copies or they can come to the library. Our report suggests a comment period from now until January 17th. We've gotten some comments from Marin County. |
| 01:43:06.90 | Unknown | or something. |
| 01:43:10.68 | Tai Fichau | to extend that to the end of the month in January, which would be a Friday, January 31st. They feel that the holidays just make it an awkward time for people to gear up and to react. The next steps is we'll put this out for comment. The comments that we receive will summarize and synthesize, and we'll try to take it back to you at the earliest time, probably in early February for your consideration. If you have any comments now, we'd love to hear them. What we still will need to do is from this process is try to zero in on an alternative, a preferred alternative that we can go through an environmental review and start a detailed design. Right now it's still pretty, it's a lot more detailed than the feasibility study but it's far from being |
| 01:44:10.45 | Unknown | It's a lot more |
| 01:44:18.11 | Tai Fichau | And... that |
| 01:44:21.48 | Unknown | Yeah, going back, you meant to say the Marin Bicycle Coalition. That's it. Okay. Oh, okay. Thank you. |
| 01:44:25.40 | Thomas Theodores | That's it. |
| 01:44:26.70 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 01:44:31.61 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor. |
| 01:44:31.88 | Unknown | okay yes one one question and then we'll go around go ahead |
| 01:44:37.70 | Thomas Theodores | So did I miss this or will this be announced in Sausalito Currents as well? |
| 01:44:44.10 | Tai Fichau | we can announce it. You could do that. |
| 01:44:46.83 | Thomas Theodores | You could do that. That'd be great. Thanks. |
| 01:44:49.06 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:44:49.07 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:44:51.76 | Thomas Theodores | Todd, with, excuse me, so just to me, if I can remember the history of this, so we, and Jonathan correct me if I get it wrong, we agreed with the county to inherit this project because most of it is in the county, some small pieces of the ensoccily and most of it is in the county, as a way to kind of coordinate this for between Caltrans, the county, and ourselves. So I think this dates back to Charles McClashen's time when we agreed to do this to help him out. It's a complicated intersection and the grant funding was part of that whole |
| 01:45:32.43 | Tai Fichau | It might even predate the supervising the glass. |
| 01:45:35.38 | Thomas Theodores | The problem certainly does, that's for sure. So I think that's important for the public and for the floating homes community to understand. So we didn't start this process going. We inherited it and agreed to shepherd it through as a way to accommodate the county. Mr. Vice Mayor. |
| 01:45:53.33 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 01:45:53.38 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 01:45:53.45 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. If I can just comment. Yeah, sure. Because it's a really important point, is that when Charles McLasthen met with us, and I think you were the sitting mayor at the time, |
| 01:45:54.41 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, sure. you because it's a really important point. |
| 01:46:03.76 | Adam Politzer | Um, they were going to abandon the project because of the difficulty getting through the Caltrans process. In Caltrans, their list of priorities, this was low. And so I think the city recognized that it was also in our best interest to step in. So I think we didn't really inherit it. We had to take it on. Otherwise, no one else would have to do it. Amen. |
| 01:46:24.84 | Thomas Theodores | Right. No, that's very, very true. And I think the other thing too, at one point, there was a discussion of pushing all this traffic all the bike traffic down the, I guess that's the east. So it's to gate five. And it's going to be an incredible cost to do that removal of trees. So these are kind of the less costly set of alternatives, if my memory is correct, trying to handle this kind of really complicated intersection because we all drive through there. |
| 01:46:38.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:46:58.76 | Thomas Theodores | Especially on the weekends, it's a crap shoot at best. You really have to pay. You keep your eyes aware. With that, are we facing any deadline with this grant funding that we have such a short comment period? Because we have a note from the floating homes saying, you know, I think they have turnover in their government affairs positions. People probably aren't the same, or they could be, I don't know, that were there when Charles McClashen talked with the floating homes to get them on board with this. So we need to kind of revisit that whole |
| 01:47:23.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:47:31.51 | Tai Fichau | We have an executed agreement with Caltrans. It was executed probably in the summertime of 2012. The grant funding sources love to see this stuff advanced in two years. So we're trying to get a project plan and environmental clearance completed by as soon as possible, but generally we're targeting June, if we get earlier, we will. |
| 01:48:08.23 | Thomas Theodores | Great. So as far as extending it, because we got a letter from the floating homes, and they're an important constituency, and even though it's outside the city of Sausalito, for the most part, you know, they're our neighbors. And we can, so they're asking for a little bit more time, just as the county asks. So is that probably something we can reach out, go to one of their meetings, and present this to the floating homes? Sure. That would be, I think, very helpful for them and for us to. |
| 01:48:32.18 | Tai Fichau | So that would be, I think, and for us to... |
| 01:48:36.82 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. |
| 01:48:37.85 | Tai Fichau | I'm not privy to that floating homes |
| 01:48:41.97 | Thomas Theodores | It just came today. Yeah, it just came today. But there you can. They probably don't have, I don't know if they come up in your 300 foot search, just the Floating Homes Association because it's not a human being. But hopefully we already noticed them Thank you. you previously, but |
| 01:48:59.92 | Tai Fichau | I'm not sure if I'll name them correctly. My concepts of the stakeholders, Waldo Point Harbor, which is probably many flooding homes, and then there's the gates go out, and that's being redeveloped. |
| 01:49:17.06 | Unknown | You got campus, you got yellow, yellow ferry dock, all of that in there. |
| 01:49:17.08 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 01:49:21.27 | Thomas Theodores | So we should make an extra effort to try and reach out, not to the, you know, we have the Floating Home Association, but just to make sure that their individual marinas are well aware. |
| 01:49:22.85 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:49:32.29 | Unknown | and what's going on. |
| 01:49:32.45 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. what's happening and they can put their two cents in because their input is as much very valued here and we're trying to shepherd this comment period not just for ourselves but the people who live in the county not just people in Sausalito. |
| 01:49:46.11 | Unknown | Okay, see you. |
| 01:49:47.64 | Thomas Theodores | Traffic gets quite heavy going north on Bridgeway in certain hours, particularly in rush hour. Does that take into account, each of the alternatives, what an alternative would do to the northbound traffic on Bridgeway? |
| 01:50:00.99 | Tai Fichau | Yeah. Part of the reason it's taken us so long is we've done some all-mode traffic counts and done some modeling. And, you know, the current results, they categorize, they describe intersection performances at stages of a term called level of service. All the options presented and the existing condition are considered level of service C, but the modeling results will The delay calculation, that varies from each alternative. It ranges from 27 seconds for current to up to 35 seconds. That would be alternative three. So whether or not six seconds is a lot, it really depends on the moment. I'm like the rest of you. If this is the tenth delay that you've experienced on your commute, it will send you over the top. But if it's your first one, maybe it's okay. |
| 01:51:24.03 | Thomas Theodores | you |
| 01:51:24.20 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:51:24.32 | Thomas Theodores | of. When you do these calculations, do you take a look at what these six seconds do when there's a lot of traffic and how far it backs up, or do you just kind of measure it in the particular delay at any time? |
| 01:51:38.33 | Tai Fichau | Uh, one might. What you just described is queue length. And at the moment, I don't believe we've calculated the queue length, but I'll go back to our consultants and try to get that question answered for you. |
| 01:51:54.91 | Thomas Theodores | I think the importance are for the 5 o'clock rush north as well as on weekends. Seasonal too. |
| 01:52:03.15 | Unknown | Oh, yes. |
| 01:52:06.29 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, yeah, I'll withhold my general comments. I obviously support notifying the Floating Homes Association as well as taking a look at the impact regarding the modeling. I was wondering with respect to process, I'm not seeing a public forum or workshop involved in or just even like an open session for people to wander in and, and view the different alternatives. And I know in my experience, past experience providing that sort of thing, even at this early stage, can prevent a lot of heartache and headache later and save money. Yeah. |
| 01:52:49.12 | Tai Fichau | And save money. And the reason we're presenting this to you now is to get your sense on that. And would it be better to have that discussion as a standalone workshop? Or would it be better to be part of a planning commission or a council meeting? We Thank you. |
| 01:53:10.38 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, thank you. |
| 01:53:11.36 | Tai Fichau | take the direction. |
| 01:53:13.52 | Unknown | That's a very, very tricky intersection. But I have noticed in other cities now they're going to some color coding. |
| 01:53:15.81 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 01:53:15.83 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 01:53:16.13 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 01:53:23.46 | Unknown | I think I believe in some areas I saw actually blue and green for bicycle Lanes? I really suggest that you attempt to incorporate that somewhat in that intersection, just regular-looking crosswalks and things. I don't know if that would be the best way to go is if I was... people in automobiles being able to see a lane, a colored lane and realizing that is exclusively for bikes. And that's just a suggestion. |
| 01:53:57.97 | Thomas Theodores | Todd, what do you think the downside of the green lanes are, especially the kind of the diagonal crossing one? Is that going to create a much longer queue |
| 01:54:10.56 | Tai Fichau | Well, I think it's mostly the issue of maintenance. |
| 01:54:10.89 | Thomas Theodores | I think. Mm-hmm. |
| 01:54:16.90 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. Communities in Northern California are starting to roll that out along the straight segments of bike lanes. The feedback I hear is generally pretty positive. But I don't see this going through the intersection. We've had conversations with Caltrans staff, I'm not sure if the maintenance staff weighed in or not, but any time you put in something that's custom, |
| 01:54:25.51 | Unknown | Right. |
| 01:54:34.52 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 01:54:55.27 | Tai Fichau | to the extent that it's new, it will be fine. But as it wears out through the traffic, having them come back and fix it, they really don't have the budget or the expertise to maintain that. So I'm not sure what level of support I'm going to get. From the Cali. Yeah, from the Cali. |
| 01:55:15.17 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:55:18.81 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 01:55:22.73 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 01:55:22.76 | Unknown | In the UK, they're doing a lot of that, but the reason for that is because they're putting the bike lanes in the middle. of the two lanes. And that's why that's being done. See you. Yeah. |
| 01:55:38.95 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. The jurisdiction of this intersection is shared with Caltrans, Marin County, and Sausalito, correct? Correct. And we've got this valuation grant, but who's going to finally get to decide which option to take and who's going to pay for it? when we decide what to do with the grant money. |
| 01:55:56.11 | Tai Fichau | I want to report back that you've got universal support of all three agencies on an alternative. And if we can get that, we will... will advance into construction phase. At this point, I'm not sure if, you know, we know that there's a board of supervisors who we could solicit their formal support on. I don't I'm not aware of a similar agency in Caltrans District 4. I don't know if we would have I don't know if we would have to stay at the director level, you know, staff level, or if there's more of a policy board. But to the extent that we find it, we would like to get it and report back that we have it. |
| 01:56:58.63 | Unknown | At this time here, any comments from the public? |
| 01:57:07.12 | Stan Barberich | the Indian Mayor and City Council. I'm Stan Barberich and I represent Floating Homes Association. And the first comment I'd like to make is that Um... It's clear from the comments that Mr. Teachout made that he hasn't thought about us. I know that the city of Sausalito knows who we are because our pictures of our homes on Gate 6 Road area are in lots of your publications and as far as notifying or discussing with Waldo Point Harbor. I checked with their engineer today. And he said we met with Mr. Teachout over two years ago. and hadn't heard anything more about it since then. and nobody in the community None of the harbor masters have received any notice whatsoever. So I appreciate the comments made by Vice Mayor Leon and others of getting his notice. Um, Even people like the San Francisco Bike Coalition have received notice but, You gotta understand that Gate 6 Road is probably one of the largest occupancy cul-de-sacs anywhere. There are a lot of people living in there. who have one and only one access to the outside world other than swimming. And so this is not something that we can study and give feedback when we haven't even had the same notice that the bike people have had. So please, please, please let us know what's going on, and not just notice the organizations, but people who live there. There are several hundred homes there, and I think they deserve the opportunity to study what's going on, and I would suggest that January 31st is not, it's too soon. So I would hope that some additional effort would be moved along in that regard. |
| 01:58:37.89 | Tai Fichau | living. |
| 01:58:56.22 | Unknown | And you will be noted. You will. I'm sure. Thank you. |
| 01:59:00.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:00.32 | Stan Barberich | Thank you. |
| 01:59:00.47 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 01:59:09.04 | Unknown | Mr. Diamond. |
| 01:59:14.32 | Thomas Theodores | Those long breads. |
| 01:59:15.39 | Unknown | Breads. Thank you. |
| 01:59:25.66 | Unknown | Share roads basically mean share the road. They're indicators for bicycles and automobiles, that both areas will be shared by both. So it's share roads. |
| 01:59:34.15 | Tai Fichau | So it's Shero. It's a graphical legend that's put on the pavement. It's a bicycle with a couple of... arrowheads in front of it. There are a few on Bridgeway and Second and on later. Now, as Mayor Weiner has indicated, it's used on a facility that doesn't have a bike lane and vehicles are unexpectedly shared. |
| 02:00:05.88 | Scott Diamond | Well, as a cyclist, long-term cyclist, I would have to say that this yellow strip |
| 02:00:12.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:00:13.18 | Scott Diamond | paralleling the freeway is the only strip that certain people are going to use because it's the quickest. They're not going to want to go around the |
| 02:00:13.28 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:00:21.92 | Unknown | Yeah, no. |
| 02:00:24.12 | Scott Diamond | you know, the mini mall. They're in a hurry and they're looking for the least amount of traffic, the least amount of rocks on the road. They're just gonna go for the fastest path. You can put whatever colors you want on this. They're not gonna pay attention. I think, I mean, I understand this intersection, and what's appalling is that the cyclists get in the way when you're trying to make a left turn out of gate six. If there was just a distinct path between right turn lane and the left turn straight ahead lane, it indicated that's where the bicycles were to go, that that would clarify the situation very cheaply. And the other thing, some signage not to be using the crosswalk as a bicycle path. This is actually illegal unless things have changed over the years. I see this all through San Salido. People are darting out in the crosswalks, thinking that they're pedestrians. And my understanding since childhood is that cyclists are supposed to be following automobile laws, not pedestrian laws. And you're supposed to be walking a bike on a sidewalk. So that was posted on that sidewalk. And maybe some enforcement at what are known to be high cyclist times so that people would start, because basically the same people are using this route for the most part. So if it was known that people need to follow the laws at this intersection, you're going to get a change in behavior. But we do need to clarify it, but I don't think, I mean I think it would be, this path along gate 5 and co-op is a total joke. Nobody except a very slow cyclist is going to use that, anybody that might, maybe a tourist or something like that. Anything going across the freeway to, you know, |
| 02:00:38.60 | Unknown | I mean, I understand |
| 02:02:22.93 | Scott Diamond | towards Marin City and then back across. Nobody's going to use that. Too much time. So anyway, I just think a couple of stripes and a little signage would explain the whole thing at a low cost and then maybe a little enforcement just to get people kind of used to the idea of actually knowing cyclist laws would solve the whole thing. |
| 02:02:42.04 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. you Thank you. Also, the law is that a cyclist is supposed to walk, like you said, it's supposed to walk your bike across a crosswalk, not ride across it. |
| 02:02:54.81 | Michael Rex | Hi, I'm Michael Rex and I participated in the planning effort for the North-South Greenway and also the feasibility study from the ferry to Gate 6. So I'm pretty familiar with a lot of these issues. Plus I commute through this intersection every day. And so I'd like to offer some comments. A lot of study went into the north-south greenway, NIH, would like to think that we're going to take advantage of that effort. We obviously can't build it all at once, but I think if we have a master plan that gets adopted by the city, and I don't think that was adopted, but I think it should be, then we should implement. that. that gets adopted in segments. rather than I'm glad we're looking at this, but I think we're looking at this as a very isolated element. And I think we should go back to that north-south greenway and see what was proposed. Jonathan, you're right. One of the suggestions was to not get a diagonal crossing at this intersection but down at gate five. And personally, I thought that had a lot of merit because it removes some of the circulation problems here. I'm actually quite concerned about the level of service when you give a free left on the bridgeway coming out of gate 6 and you preclude any traffic moving through those crosswalks when they're occupied. I suspect there will be perhaps more than a six-second delay. And we've seen what happens when you just tweak an intersection when the light went in at Tamp Valley. So I think that level of service has to be looked at. And I think the more you try to make work here, it's going to complicate it. And I'd like to know why the gate 51 wasn't looked at. And if, Jonathan, as you said, it required extra cost along the east side of Bridgeway between Gate 6 and Gate 5. Well, maybe that's a cost we should consider. particularly if it starts implementing a portion of the North-South Greenway, which I think offers the community great benefit by getting bikes off of Bridgeway so older people and young people can feel safer and bike more frequently. That's one of the purposes of North-South Greenway. The other thing is it creates a commuting corridor where people can really start taking bike transportation as an alternative mode seriously because there's a safe, dedicated route for it. So I'd like to go back and revisit that. I'd like to see how this...two things. I'd like to see how the North-South Greenway that's been envisioned coordinates with this. Y-gate-5-6. crossover wasn't considered. And two last things. I think putting Cheryl's in the middle of that intersection won't mean anything. I also commute through the Hub on Red Hill every day. And they have Cheryl's and wasn't doing much good. The minute they painted a green stripe, we know exactly where the bikes are going. The last thing, I think Linda's idea of a public workshop on this would be very helpful. Thank you. |
| 02:06:09.48 | Unknown | Anybody else from the public? Okay. Bring it up here for comment. This is an item that no action taken, just... information so. |
| 02:06:21.77 | Thomas Theodores | Can I ask Tarek a question before we get to the comments? |
| 02:06:22.41 | Unknown | I'm sorry. before we get to the comments? |
| 02:06:24.13 | Thomas Theodores | . you Todd, do you think adding an extra, you know, given the holidays are in the middle here, I know the county had wanted to have 15 more days, but is there a possibility, will it to extend it to the middle of February to give a full two months of review period time? Does that inhibit your ability to make this? I think it's fine. And can we get a cross directory from the county? Can we have the county notify the people |
| 02:06:52.83 | Tai Fichau | The county has provided us a 300-foot list already. We'll expand. |
| 02:06:59.08 | Thomas Theodores | We can't. Expand can we expand that to a lot of greater distance so because some of the as you when you showed though some of the floating homes are a good distance away from But this intersection is important to every single one of them So is there a way to get let's make the county do the noticing since we're handling so much of this let them do it |
| 02:07:22.89 | Tai Fichau | Well, their planning staff did provide us a list, a 300 foot list. I'll go back to the task if they can give us |
| 02:07:27.95 | Thomas Theodores | it. No, but why don't we make them just notify everybody? Say, hey, we took this off for you. We're not, but you've got to notify the residents of the county residents and say, hey, this is your, I mean, I'll ask Adam to just go back and, because this is, look, we took this from, I've got to tell you, we said, Charles, we'll do this for you, but you've got to help us out. Don't just shove this on us to take the cost of mailings and everything. We need the county to step up to the plate here. |
| 02:07:30.94 | Tai Fichau | Well, I'm sorry. Everybody. |
| 02:07:34.11 | Unknown | at the close home. |
| 02:07:58.68 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 02:07:59.61 | Thomas Theodores | I... |
| 02:08:00.03 | Adam Politzer | I think we understand your message. Um, But a lot of time has passed, and a lot of players have changed. both at the county, at the department head level let alone at the county supervisor level for our district, So I think we understand the message. But. The ball is rolling and the process is rolling and I think the noticing component is the important message is to make sure that the folks in the affected area our notice properly. Um, Who sends the noticing, let us work on that in But I don't want to bog down on, well, if they notice it, it's going to take two additional weeks. When we're extending it two additional weeks, we want to make sure that... |
| 02:08:33.71 | Unknown | I'm not sure. |
| 02:08:45.37 | Adam Politzer | the notice happens timely. If it means we have to do it, and then I think we'd have to do it. |
| 02:08:49.19 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:08:49.24 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 02:08:49.51 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:08:49.59 | Thomas Theodores | it. |
| 02:08:49.81 | Jonathon Goldman | Thank you. |
| 02:08:52.09 | Adam Politzer | We understand your message. |
| 02:08:53.05 | Thomas Theodores | A quick question for you, sir. I've been to a couple of the meetings over the years and they're held in that, is there a, that's not a big space. Do you think this would be something where you could get a fair amount of attendance to come to a public workshop? Or is there a normal meeting space you think it would be? |
| 02:09:15.70 | Stan Barberich | Thank you. that of attendance. Thank you. |
| 02:09:17.87 | Thomas Theodores | Should we have it here? |
| 02:09:19.44 | Stan Barberich | Here. you |
| 02:09:22.73 | Thomas Theodores | Right. |
| 02:09:22.97 | Unknown | Beach, you know. |
| 02:09:23.95 | Thomas Theodores | So should we have it here and then but just notice it that the meeting is here? |
| 02:09:30.14 | Unknown | And also, if you go 300 feet west, there isn't anything there really. So the condition is, every one of these people that live in those floating homes, like it was mentioned, this is the only way out. So I think that we should take the 300 feet that you lose going westward, nothing, and add that into the floating homes that all of them are included in that. |
| 02:10:01.31 | Thomas Theodores | I mean, this is, this is, I guess we're back to the comments. |
| 02:10:02.80 | Unknown | Bye. Yeah. |
| 02:10:04.40 | Thomas Theodores | Are we in common? |
| 02:10:05.78 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, now we're back in the comments. We're back in comments. |
| 02:10:05.98 | Unknown | Now we're back in comment. We're back in comment. Okay. |
| 02:10:08.68 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:10:09.04 | Thomas Theodores | you're |
| 02:10:09.07 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:10:09.26 | Thomas Theodores | Sorry. |
| 02:10:09.29 | Thomas Theodores | All right, Todd. |
| 02:10:09.53 | Unknown | So, you you |
| 02:10:10.86 | Thomas Theodores | guys. |
| 02:10:11.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:10:11.42 | Thomas Theodores | . |
| 02:10:11.45 | Unknown | THE FAMILY. |
| 02:10:11.52 | Thomas Theodores | Right? |
| 02:10:12.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:10:12.04 | Thomas Theodores | Go ahead. |
| 02:10:12.13 | Unknown | Go ahead, go ahead, it's okay. |
| 02:10:13.29 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Are there questions or comments? No, go ahead. Either one, okay. Well, first of all, I appreciate all the comments. And on the idea of notice, I certainly |
| 02:10:14.81 | Unknown | No, go ahead. |
| 02:10:21.37 | Thomas Theodores | support that and we have to give an additional notice even if it takes time because we have to do it the right way. Two points on that. One is in your report you talk about presenting to our Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, and I think that may be another way that we could use as a workshop, you know, that you can have an extension presentation and make sure that it's, you know, get the extensive notice |
| 02:10:39.33 | Unknown | I mean, |
| 02:10:41.17 | Thomas Theodores | And I'd also suggest you put it on open town hall. That would be another way to get some feedback and give more notice on it. And I'd like to reiterate that whatever we do there, we have to be really careful that we don't exacerbate the problems that we have on that northbound traffic. during rush hour and other peak times because, you know, we don't want to do the Tam Valley kind of situation there. first. |
| 02:11:07.68 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. I hear the comments regarding open town hall and the bicycle committee presentation. And that's fine, but I think there is a lot of value, and I think it's imperative here to have a public workshop which is open to all and advertised via the saucer occurrence and via noticing the floating homes. And I also think it's important that the structure of the workshop, clear diagrams around the room, you know, the big flip charts with color graphics of each proposal. And I would personally like to see included in that public forum to revisit the Gate 5 Road options. you know, that were discussed prior, so people can look at that option too. I think there was merit with what Michael Rex shared earlier with respect to the reduced traffic at Gate 5 Road. And obviously it goes without saying that this not only impacts, I mean this clearly impacts the Floating Homes Association and we absolutely have to do everything we can to make sure that they are notified and that they can participate. Thank you. and that they are heard. And in addition, I would add that This impacts all residents of Sausalito because we all go through that interception too. And that's why I see this as being really critical that we do outreach to frankly the whole town with soft little currents and you know. possibly even have a contact the Morinscope to do an article on it just to get as much outreach as possible so people can weigh in early now so we can save money and time in the future. |
| 02:13:05.01 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:13:05.11 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:13:05.25 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:13:05.62 | Ray Withy | Any other comments? Okay. Thank you Todd. Very quickly I'm not just, I'm not going to say anything just for the sake of saying it. I'm not an expert on intersections and transportation in this detail but you guys are and one of the things that I'd like to see is to reiterate on Council Member Theodorus's point that I'd like to see a little bit more analytics of these options because I fully support extended outreach as much as possible. But it's really important that options are presented with pros, cons, facts, consequences, because people who are not transportation experts are going to have strong opinions on this, and it would be nice to at least make sure we're all talking in the same language of factual background. Thank you. and it will help me not being an expert. Okay, thank you. at it. |
| 02:14:14.89 | Thomas Theodores | Just a follow-up question for Todd. Todd, is it possible to include the Gate 5 Road option or options for the public forum? |
| 02:14:25.57 | Jonathon Goldman | Hi, I'm Jonathan Goldman, Public Works Director and City Engineer. Absolutely possible, and it will be addressed in the context of the Gate 6 Road to Gray Landing planning project that the Council actually did already adopt. I want to make it really these aren't either or. The funding that we have is to study improvements to the Gate 6 Road intersection. We don't have funding to study improvements to the Gate 5 Road intersection. the community and the council would prefer that we not make improvements to the Gate 6 Road intersection. We can take that direction and go back to MTC and the state and the county and say, this isn't our priority. I personally think that that would be a mistake. And the fact is that the objective of this work and the objective of the alternatives identification and the analytics that we have done is to build upon the Gate 6 Road to Fair Landing planning study. and identify improvements, not just for bicyclists, not just for pedestrians, but for everybody who uses this intersection. That's how we identified the alternatives that we have. And the reason that we have not done outreach to other stakeholders is you haven't seen the alternatives before tonight. So our intent this evening was to let you know where we are, a status report on this project, to let you know that the public participation process, notification process is starting and to get your direction and your input on how to take that process forward. I think we've pretty clearly heard a number of things that we need to do that we will do. And so I just wanted to answer your question. |
| 02:16:18.60 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a comment. Just to wrap up, is that I... |
| 02:16:20.56 | Jonathon Goldman | Right. |
| 02:16:25.23 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, Jonathan, for your response. And I think with the Gate 6 Road, by including the Gate 5 Road options in the public forum, I think even if we look at the Gate 5 Road options, it would still impact the solution for Gate 6 Road. Because if the solution was to draw the traffic, you know, through that area, current corridor perhaps suggesting improvements there down to like Gate 5 Road. I know I've used that corridor before on a bike, that that would presumably require some funds to provide that flow and increase that for pedestrians and bicyclists alike. So I see them as complementary, and that's why I would like to see that included in the public forum. |
| 02:17:15.50 | Unknown | Okay. Any other comment, Theo? No? Okay. With that, thank you very much, Jonathan, Todd. And I'd like to take up to a three-minute break at this time. |
| 02:17:32.09 | Unknown | tough. Yeah, it's going to be on the agenda these guys. |
| 02:17:41.64 | Unknown | I'm a darling bird. |
| 02:17:42.23 | Unknown | you |
| 02:17:42.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:17:42.33 | Unknown | French history |
| 02:17:42.74 | Unknown | Thank you. Two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me Seven swans were swimmin' Six geese a-layin' Five golden rings Four calling birds Three French hens Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree On the eighth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Eight maids a-milkin' Seven swans were swimmin' Six geese a-layin' Five golden rings. Four calling birds. Three French hens. Two turtle doves. And a partridge in a pear tree. On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me nine pipers pipin'. Eight maids a-milking. Seven swans a-swimm Six geese away Five golden rings Four calling birds, three French hens, two |
| 02:18:26.80 | Unknown | See you next time. |
| 02:18:32.17 | Unknown | you |
| 02:18:53.02 | Unknown | Turtles of |
| 02:18:53.77 | Unknown | And a partridge in a pear tree On the tenth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Ten ladies dancing Nine pipers swiping Eight maids a-milking Seven swans a-swimmin' Six geese a-laying Five golden rings Four calling birds Three French hens Two turtledoves And a partridge in a pear tree On the eleventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me Eleven lords a-leapin' Ten ladies dancing Nine pipers piping |
| 02:19:28.93 | Unknown | Bye. Bye. Right. |
| 02:19:32.63 | Unknown | Eat basil, milk, and milk. Seven swans a-swimming Six geasel-eight Five golden rings Four calling birds Three French hens Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree On the twelfth day of Christmas My true love gave to me Twelve drummers drumming Eleven lords a leap and ten ladies dancing. Thank you. |
| 02:20:01.15 | Unknown | Yum. Discussion in direction of the termination of non-motorized transportation pilot program. Less than a little film with the Steers Project. You don't look like Jonathan Goldman, according to, but go ahead, go ahead, Todd. |
| 02:20:14.73 | Tai Fichau | Go ahead. I'm a consultant. I've been working on this project for many years, so I'm taking it upon myself to present For those of you who weren't there, Marin County was granted $25 million in 2006 with the now expired transportation bill for implementing some innovative projects, and it was all grouped into an effort called the Non-Motarized Transportation Pilot Program. Um, When that effort was originally started, they identified about a $1.9 million project that was going to be countywide. They solicited agencies for ideas and projects. Sosli Do actually submitted seven with the help of one of our members of the audience helping a lot. But they reviewed those and granted us two. Um, One is called the arguably called the Casno stairs, the Saucyde stairs, the Filbert stairs near 202 Casno, linking Um, Filbert and Casno. and then another linking Sausalito Boulevard and Prospect next to Sausalito Boulevard. As we were developing design work for those two sites, we got some feedback from the Prospect and Sausalito Boulevard neighborhood not wanting any further advancement. We revised the scope and we terminated the work on that site. But design work continued on the Filbert Stair. Here's the aerial photo. Here's City Hall. Um, you There's a walkway here. There's a walkway across this door. And then there's what we call a trail standard stair. And this is highlighted in red going to, for all practical purposes, a parking lot to these townhouses. And then there's a 10-foot, public easement along that driveway, allowing pedestrians to get to CASMEL. This is a photograph taken earlier today of the Trail Standard Stair. This is right at Filbert, and then it jogs up here, and then from that jog to a sharp right, is the next one. And at the top of this, it kind of levels out. There's some stepping stones, a walkway to the driveway. This is the design for what's proposed. This trail standard stair would be replaced with reinforced concrete stair and a railing. We would also put, at the request of the property owners, we would put a redwood fence. along the edge of that to minimize any sort of trespassing under the private property. Um... you The challenge of developing this project is when we sought the grant funds We believe that the existing stair was public. Part of the development, we had to do a survey and we found that those those stairs had been exclusively on private property. So, um... Federal transportation funds can't be used to improve private property, so what to do? Well, we met with the property owners. Because it's such a narrowly... a small facility and we're just dealing with the facility itself, not so much the users of the facility. We did 150-foot outreach to property owners and residents to discuss this finding. and we tried to get some ideas on what was acceptable. And after about six months, we concluded that The stakeholders in that fairly narrow area liked the stairway in its existing position. They didn't want us to reload. There is, happens to be public easement immediately to the south of that, and they preferred not to relocate it into that area. So that's what we started to do. We, the property owners affected, were willing to donate right-of-way. And the reason they were willing, originally conceived there was no money in the project for right-of-way. There was money for design and there was money for construction. There was no money for right-of-way acquisition. So the property owners were willing to donate, and we spent about a year and a half drafting up easement agreements which were executed. The three properties are 202-204 CASNEL, which are these two homes. Then there's 190 Casno, which is this area here, and then a little small area of 194. But this shows the existing easements. This is walkway and driveway. This happens to be a planter area, and this happens to be a landscaped area. What this graphic doesn't show is this easement also continues up. And during our discussions with property owners, we explored moving this route. from along this walkway to up. And the preference was to keep it along here. So we secured easements in 2009. We completed the design and the environmental in 2010. And at that point we start requesting construction funds. We were rejected. That request was rejected, the reason being is that Caltrans has to verify that when we acquire right-of-way, we conform to something called the Uniform Relocation Act. the way we acquired the right of way did not conform to that act. So our understanding, The paperwork for that is literally three feet tall, but as best as we know, In a nutshell. Um, We're required to advise property owners of the right to be compensated fair market value for the property that's being considered. We have to get the properties appraised. We have to go through a negotiation step. regarding the rights and the property value, and then we either acquire it through a fee payment or through actively acknowledged donations. I'm back. that process wasn't complied with. So. you What do we do? We spent two and a half years trying to reconfigure our budget from no money for right-of-way to money for right-of-way. So in May of this year, we got budget reallocated allowing $124,000 up to $124,000 for right-of-way costs and then up to $160,000 for construction if we get to that point. Since May of 2013, we hired Marin County Public Works Real Estate for right-of-way agent services. This was a $10,000 fee, so you didn't see it as a small contract. They looked at where we were, and they were recommending that we pursue getting acknowledgments of the donation from the property owners who One thing that's not clear in the presentation was between 2010 and now, two of the properties have changed hands. you there's a desire to work with the property owners who executed the right-of-way agreements, at least at this step. And then we finally got feedback from all the property owners, and one wanted to get an appraisal. One is in the process. One lives in a condominium and is trying to buy the other condominium unit from their neighbor. And since it's a transaction, they were in complying with the city regulations were inspected their sewer lateral and found it needed repair. So they were interested in getting maybe some city subsidy of that. And then two property owners were going to wait and see. So we had a meeting with the right-of-way agents to see, you know, what does this all mean? Thank you. And right away negotiations, if you've been involved with them, are can be pretty involved. They estimated it would take at least nine months, and it could take even up to several years, depending on how far apart the parties are during the negotiations. So from the construction side, Caltrans, the non-mortarized transportation pilot programs have gone on since 2006, and there's a desire to get that wrapped up We were... fortunate, I suppose, during the recession. Um, Congress wasn't able to formulate a new transportation bill, so they've been continuing the old transportation bill, and as a Thank you. Love. pilot programs have been kept alive by that may or may not be likely in the future. So if we can't secure construction funding, there may not be a pilot program to draw funds for it. So anyways, there's not time. We don't believe there's time to complete the right-of-way process. you so that we can secure the construction funding without getting the right-of-way process completed. you So we're at Hobson's choice here. What's the, none of these options are very desirable, but... Here they are. We believe the options are to terminate the project, but we retain the easements, and then the city would maintain the existing stair. We could also terminate the project and vacate the easements, and the stairs would revert to the property owners. We could terminate the project and try to find non-federal funds to construct the project because it is designed and it does have CEQA and NEPA clearance. You know, so it's shovel ready. And to this moment, it's shovel-ready. And then finally, the option is to preserve the project, attempt revision to the deadlines, and continue with the revisions and appraisals. And that's why we're here before you. Um, we WE I believe the time has run out. We think there's some minor risks that the property owners might challenge us to build a new stair. The new property owners were disclosed, the old property owners had to disclose that the city is designing this project. There might be some expectation on their part to see a new facility. And then we also, you know, since the agreements, though we didn't conform with the Federal Uniform Relocation Act, we do have the easements. So we have an obligation to maintain those facilities, and we have accepted the liability risks. Um, On option two, we could vacate the easements or attempt to vacate the easements and terminate the agreement. We're not sure what the property owners would do, but we might get some legal challenges. Again, we might get some challenges for them compelling us to build a new stair. |
| 02:33:50.71 | Tai Fichau | The last, the third one is to build it with non-federal funds. The city did years ago obtain a grant from a property owner who was who was trying to build a stair and Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:34:10.23 | Scott Diamond | you |
| 02:34:10.50 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. persuaded the city to accept funds instead of the completed stairs, so there are some resources there. I'm not sure if they're programmed in the current capital budget, but you could direct us to evaluate that and come back to you. And if there are resources, get authorization, or if there aren't, if it's not budgeted. come back to you during the next budget cycle and try to get that considered in the next fiscal year. There's, again, there's some minor risks that property owners are aware of the Uniform Relocation Act, so they may want something. What that might be, I can't tell you. So the last one is to preserve the project. Attempt to negotiate with Caltrans on the construction deadlines and continue with the appraisals negotiations. Over $120,000 set aside for right-of-way purposes. Resources are there. But we don't know Caltrans' willingness to extend the timetable, and we have no idea how long the negotiations are going to take. And then it requires a lot of staff time. As a result of that, staff is making a recommendation to terminate the project, preserve the easements, and then authorize staff to start the federal closeout process. Thank you. |
| 02:35:49.10 | Thomas Theodores | A question for Mary, actually. Mary, have these easements been executed, as far as you know? So by accepting these easements, is Todd correct? And I'm not saying you're not, but I just want to make sure. Because I don't trust you. You don't work here anymore, so get out of here. No, that we, by default, then, now, even though we thought this was a public stair, and found out most of it was on private property, because we've accepted these easements, are we now then, is the city then now therefore, |
| 02:36:05.44 | Unknown | You don't work here anymore. |
| 02:36:06.97 | Unknown | So get out of here. |
| 02:36:08.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:29.30 | Thomas Theodores | responsible for maintaining and improving these stairs. |
| 02:36:29.80 | Mary Wagner | responsible. |
| 02:36:36.00 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:36:36.01 | Mary Wagner | Well, |
| 02:36:36.35 | Thomas Theodores | I know that's a legal question and you don't want to, but is it? |
| 02:36:36.37 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. I don't know. Well, I think there's a couple points to make in response to that. One is I think these stairs were utilized as public stairs, correct, Todd? |
| 02:36:49.33 | Tai Fichau | Yeah, they were treated to a San Bernardino. The townhouse complex, and the public have been using them, as best as we know, from that townhouse. |
| 02:36:49.53 | Mary Wagner | Yeah, they were as best as we could. Yeah. in the community. |
| 02:36:59.28 | Mary Wagner | So the point, the reason I raised that is that I think that they were considered public stairs and we were trying to kind of work with the property owners to locate them in on public, more likely on public property. The reason I raise that is because there's likely a prescriptive, there could be a prescriptive easement in favor of the public over them anyway. We haven't spent time and legal resources to look into that. It was very much a cooperative process back in 2009, Todd. Was it 2009 that you started this? Or whenever it began with the neighbors. So there's certainly that exposure that the city has, I think, regardless of whether the easements are in place or not. |
| 02:37:32.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:32.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:37:40.63 | Thomas Theodores | And if you give them back, Can you give them back? give it all back, including the responsibility to maintain |
| 02:37:51.19 | Mary Wagner | I mean, the council. Sounds like that's great. |
| 02:37:51.61 | Thomas Theodores | Sounds like that's great. |
| 02:37:53.18 | Mary Wagner | The city council could be presented with an action to vacate the easements that have been recorded. And we'd have to research that for you a little bit. |
| 02:38:04.29 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:38:05.60 | Mary Wagner | If that is the direction that the council would take, I think we would have to proactively indicate that they are not public stairs and that they are private stairs and that the city does not take any responsibility for them. |
| 02:38:09.03 | Unknown | Thank you. PROACTIES. |
| 02:38:20.64 | Unknown | Okay, any questions, other questions? Okay. Any questions at this time from the public? Watch out, don't stop. Thank you. |
| 02:38:31.73 | Thomas Theodores | Don't hurt your friend. |
| 02:38:35.84 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:38:35.86 | Michael Rex | I had Michael Rex in tux. This project grew out of Imagine Solicito and the Transportation Action Committee on which I served as secretary. |
| 02:38:38.44 | Unknown | Ah, yeah. |
| 02:38:49.72 | Michael Rex | And we're looking to encourage people to get out of their car by providing and enhancing alternative modes of transportation. In this case, walking. Instead of getting in your car, walking. down to the store or whatever. Um, And in our discussions with residents, what we found is that a lot of people would walk, but they found our stairway system, which were originally from the days of the ferry, where you can walk from your house down to the ferry. They stopped using them because they were dangerous. And so we worked with Dorothy Gibson, who knew the stairways in town better than anybody, and we identified like six projects where the stairs were dangerous that people used regularly but were being discouraged from continuing to use. And we narrowed it down to these two. And I was very disappointed Saucel Boulevard was abandoned as a project because some of the residents didn't want the public walking past their home. I thought that was wrong. If you buy next to a right-of-way, expect it to be used by the public. But we lost that one. I urge you not to lose this one. I would suggest that we expedite the appraisal process and that we concurrently ask Caltrans for an extension. So we work at it at both ends. And we don't throw away years of work by your volunteers trying to enhance this town, and years of your staff and public money planning a project, and we give up because of some technicalities. Frankly, let's cut through the red tape and get it done. Thank you. |
| 02:39:50.60 | Unknown | . |
| 02:39:50.75 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 02:40:20.11 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:40:31.91 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:40:35.67 | Unknown | Spiffy tonight. Peter Van Meter. I think we need to put a clip of Todd's comments on YouTube. as an example of government bureaucracy run amok. That story is just unbelievable to me about the delays and issues that have come up on this. But the question I had is the, property owners seem to be willing to donate. one of these alternatives, a part of that story. And now we're hearing 120,000 something to in fact buy something they already agreed to donate. I'm a little confused on how and why that could happen. |
| 02:41:17.39 | Unknown | Well. |
| 02:41:18.11 | Unknown | Could be new. |
| 02:41:18.91 | Unknown | Could be new owners, things like that. |
| 02:41:19.97 | Tai Fichau | Yeah. |
| 02:41:20.44 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:41:20.48 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:41:20.58 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:41:23.67 | Tai Fichau | Our right-of-way agents, We are, from May till now, we are basically taking a step back. He was pursuing a couple strategies. The one that we got conclusion on in November was to get an acknowledgement that they donated. We haven't gotten acknowledgments from any of the property owners. But there is direction to get an appraisal. The right away agent would, if we went in the direction of appraisal, would give us some recommendations. At least informally, they're saying it would start negotiations with the current property owners. And how we reconcile the negotiations with the current property owners with the old agreements. That's an open question. We'd have to come back and respond to you, but it's something that we've been advised is doable. Exactly how, I'm not able to tell you at this point. |
| 02:41:57.11 | Unknown | you But, |
| 02:42:43.23 | Thomas Theodores | I have a follow-up question, Mr. Mayor. |
| 02:42:43.26 | Unknown | Thank you. Any other comment from the public? Okay. Go ahead. |
| 02:42:51.58 | Thomas Theodores | Todd, are the current new owners aware of the liabilities that they have inherited if the city were to move forward and abandon this project if they did not agree to donate to adhere to the donation Thank you. intent of the prior owners. |
| 02:43:12.16 | Tai Fichau | Well, they're aware of the liability, mostly the trip and fall liability. There have not been any discussions with regard to implications of the city terminating the agreements and vacating. So there will be a lot of discussion. |
| 02:43:23.27 | Unknown | have not been able to do it. |
| 02:43:37.62 | Tai Fichau | that would have to be dealt with. |
| 02:43:40.94 | Thomas Theodores | And a follow-up question is you mentioned earlier that you identified there was a different alternative nearby, that the city had a right-of-way, and the property owners... you know, clearly preferred the existing route as opposed, and do the new property owners, are they, would this new route that would that impede on the current property owners, typography or the way they? Well, she has a few choices. I'm just wondering if they knew the choices that they might. |
| 02:44:10.56 | Tai Fichau | I'm just wondering if they knew the choices that they might. The property owners who were present in 2010 who may be affected by a reoriented path, they're still present. And they have made it clear that they really don't want it considered. |
| 02:44:39.72 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, so it's kind of a moot point if they're the same property owners that we're willing to donate and still are presumably. |
| 02:44:49.05 | Ray Withy | Greg? Yeah, I think this question's for Mary. And or Todd, first Todd, you've mentioned a couple of times that if we ended the agreements, what do we mean by agreements? Are we talking about the easement agreements that are recorded? Yes. Is the easement agreement that's an exhibit in here the exact structure of the agreements that have been executed by each of the property owners? |
| 02:45:09.52 | Mary Wagner | Thank you. I'm sorry. THE FAMILY. |
| 02:45:21.08 | Tai Fichau | The example in your packet goes to this particular space. |
| 02:45:28.44 | Ray Withy | Okay, so... |
| 02:45:29.80 | Tai Fichau | We have two others, one for this space with two property owner signatories because these are two townhounds, but they're on a common lot. And then finally, this is a condominium, so we've got two signatories here. Again, two condominium units here, but on a common lot. So we have easement agreements for this little area, this medium area, and this longer area, three separate ones. |
| 02:46:01.02 | Ray Withy | essentially with these terms in it. |
| 02:46:04.23 | Tai Fichau | Identical, except for the addresses of the property. |
| 02:46:08.14 | Ray Withy | Okay. So Mary, um, |
| 02:46:15.99 | Ray Withy | Um... How... Um... Can we actually get out of an easement agreement without actually the parties that entered into it, agreeing? |
| 02:46:35.01 | Mary Wagner | I'd have to look into that more for you. Okay. You know, if it's, I mean, the city can vacate right of way, you know, that has been granted to it. Whether or not you can do that with a negotiated easement is a different question that I'd have to look into. |
| 02:46:37.15 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 02:46:37.54 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:46:50.20 | Ray Withy | Okay. Okay. |
| 02:46:53.98 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. you Yes, okay, so... Thank you. |
| 02:47:02.11 | Thomas Theodores | It sounds like we should at least try to get some more time here in the option four and see if we can get some more. Look, these stairs, how many times have we tried now to improve stairs? There's been three or four attempts to improve. maybe five, if I can, five different times. We've tried to improve stairs over the last six, seven years. And it's a big cost. It's a lot of issues. And we still haven't succeeded. And whether it's South Street, whether it was Casno, the project that wasn't, It wasn't out of the kindness of their heart. They were required to do that under their planning Commission approval and they sued the city said I don't want to do it and the settlement was some cash money there was CASN over there were a couple other ones Um, It would seem a shame to let this last one go, since we actually have funding for it. But if the funding evaporates, then we don't have money, because there's no more money programmed for this particular stair in the CIP, I believe, than what's in this. But do we really think it's impossible to get some extra time out of Caltrans or whoever the right governing body is or should we at least just ask the question and see what happens because it can't hurt to ask, you know. That's kind of the way I look at it. If that falls through and they say, well, too bad, then, yeah, it's too bad. And then we have to ask ourselves whether we want to even be in the, whether we want these stairs or not, but we should at least ask. |
| 02:48:12.28 | Unknown | of the... |
| 02:48:27.33 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:48:41.35 | Tai Fichau | We had a recent interaction between Caltrans people, definitely higher than the typical local assistance people, more like either their bosses or maybe even just below the You know. What are you going to do? And when are you going to do it? They had everyone, every six months they issue a list of projects that are at risk of being defunded because of inactivity. So this project was put on that list. We interacted with them and said, you know, we've been very active. We haven't been active enough to bill you for it, but we've been very active. Thank you. with them and said, you know, we've been very active. We haven't been active enough to bill you for it, but we've been very active and we reported that and then we asked for this June 30th deadline and they agreed to it. Now, if we go back, you know, clearly we can ask them for a different time, but I have no idea if they'll say yes. |
| 02:49:14.60 | Thomas Theodores | So countries? |
| 02:49:21.06 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:21.08 | Thomas Theodores | That's right. |
| 02:49:21.38 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:53.78 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:49:54.18 | Tai Fichau | Okay. Yeah. |
| 02:49:55.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:55.97 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:49:56.02 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:49:56.12 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:49:56.16 | Unknown | you Yeah. |
| 02:49:57.56 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:49:57.69 | Unknown | else. |
| 02:49:58.32 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:49:58.42 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:00.02 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:50:00.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:00.19 | Tai Fichau | Thank you. |
| 02:50:01.22 | Unknown | Thank you, Chuck. We have four curtains to pick. |
| 02:50:09.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:50:11.58 | Unknown | And we don't know what's behind any of the curtains, really. |
| 02:50:14.13 | Unknown | Really? Thank you. |
| 02:50:18.65 | Unknown | So we have a recommendation on any of the curtains. |
| 02:50:24.29 | Unknown | Thank you. you |
| 02:50:26.13 | Thomas Theodores | I would say you've got to pursue option four, see if you can get some time. And if that doesn't follow through, if they say no, so I'm just trying to make sure. Caltrans is the administrative agent for the non-motorized transportation. Okay. So if they say no, forget about it, then it's sort of like why are we in the stair business on these particular stairs since we don't really even own the property. I think we should vacate the private easements if we can't get CalTrans to go through and give us more time and if we can vacate these easements that have been given to us and relinquish the liability for the stairs just as the city did with the sidewalks years ago. Because if we can't improve them and we don't own them, we shouldn't have the liability for them. But my preference would be to try and plow through this and see if we can get it done, but just so we can get at least one stair completed. |
| 02:50:54.70 | Unknown | Yeah. you Yeah. |
| 02:50:56.18 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:51:25.56 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:51:25.60 | Thomas Theodores | There. |
| 02:51:29.29 | Thomas Theodores | MR. |
| 02:51:29.63 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a comment. Yeah, these stairs, I mean, even I've used them as, you know, a form of transportation just, you know, to access, you know, different locations on that hillside. I know the public, to Mary's earlier comment about the prescriptive easement, in addition to seeking more time from Caltrans, I'd like to, |
| 02:51:47.08 | Unknown | THE END OF THE END OF THE |
| 02:51:47.15 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:51:47.16 | Unknown | in addition to the |
| 02:51:51.23 | Thomas Theodores | perhaps reengage the property owners with discussions regarding the liability costs and what you know the the implications of that because You know I just you know for them I'm not sure if they understand what they would be taking on to see the city walk away from this |
| 02:52:21.40 | Unknown | Well, any other suggestions, recommendations? |
| 02:52:23.12 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:52:23.27 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 02:52:23.33 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:52:26.77 | Unknown | Oh, yeah. |
| 02:52:26.90 | Ray Withy | Bye. Thank you. |
| 02:52:27.07 | Unknown | Bye. |
| 02:52:27.33 | Ray Withy | I'm with the vice mayor on this one. I think we should try to see if we can extend. And if we can't, well, it's money that we have to forego. I'm a little worried about the amount of time and effort it's going to take to try and get this appraisal done. If you've got an expert saying it could take a long time, then it's probably gonna take a long time. So, and I don't know how we deal with that. |
| 02:53:01.72 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:53:01.73 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 02:53:02.04 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:53:02.16 | Unknown | Thank you. Okay, well, then let's start off with what seems to be a recommendation. |
| 02:53:12.65 | Thomas Theodores | You don't have to vote on it, you just direct staff and give a phone vote to try and extend the grant time period or at least show you're completing enough activity to keep it. |
| 02:53:17.80 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:53:23.17 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:53:23.20 | Unknown | active. |
| 02:53:23.22 | Thomas Theodores | I'm running and seeing how much time you can get, and if not, I'm saying you're going to come back here and we'll decide whether we're going to try to put the easement dry in the meantime. Do you need to give us some point of view about your opinion about what giving these back or not means to the city? |
| 02:53:34.99 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 02:53:41.44 | Thomas Theodores | And perhaps to add to that, perhaps another conversation with the property owners, because the issue around appraisal and, you know, 120K or so with right-of-way when, you know, clearly the prior property owners were aware of the liability and the history here. So I think perhaps letting them know the options ahead and making sure they're fully debriefed might yield some desired results. Thank you. |
| 02:54:11.87 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 02:54:11.88 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 02:54:11.90 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor, I just don't want to set anyone up for false expectations here. |
| 02:54:12.74 | Thomas Theodores | Right. |
| 02:54:17.84 | Adam Politzer | Um, the Caltrans, the folks that have this bucket of money, want to see projects built before the funds disappear. and This is, as Todd mentioned, this is a very complicated project and when you have multiple people involved in change of ownership Thank you. I think that staff should be commended on what they've done to be able to hold on to the funds and we'll continue to fight for those funds. But at some point, the people from the outside are going to look at this and say, It's pretty darn complicated. when you got the property owners, with a position. potentially wanting to be compensated and a deadline of June 30th to make all this happen and the experts as council member with these. mentioned telling you it's going to take a long time Staff will do its best. I agree with Councilmember Pfeiffer and the other Councilmembers. let's try to pull everyone to the table and say, you know, the mess we have, and see if we can rectify it. The odds are stacked up against us. It's been stacked up against us. once we found that this was on private property. |
| 02:55:26.17 | Unknown | Right. |
| 02:55:26.50 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. And when we fought with the county when they tried to take it away from us back when Charles McClashon was there and Craig Tackleberry and Jonathan and and I had a knockout, dragout fight up there. Um, when they say well Tiburon was able to do it. Well of course, if it's on public property, We could have done it too. That's not the situation. So we're... |
| 02:55:45.66 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:55:46.52 | Adam Politzer | We're fighting to try to get this through. We recognize the importance of it both for the public and for all concerned, but the odds are stacked against it. So I just wanted to make sure that people recognize that. |
| 02:56:00.47 | Unknown | Okay, I think... That's where we are. So it's back to you. So thank you. Okay. Let's get on with this now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 02:56:20.64 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 02:56:40.05 | Adam Politzer | Mr. Mayor and Councilmembers, only a few times during the year that I get to stand at this location. And Yes, in case anyone doesn't recognize me. Adam Politz, your city manager. Thank you. |
| 02:56:55.20 | Unknown | Hi, Mom. Now I'm on TV. I might not ever leave. |
| 02:57:07.30 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 02:57:07.32 | Adam Politzer | As the mayor always makes fun of me when I pull out my notes here in multiple pages, This is probably need your glasses, Mr. Mayor. I put this in like nine point font so I can fit it on one page. In all seriousness, I'm not here tonight to embarrass the mayor as he is leaving the post as mayor or potentially leaving the post as mayor tonight. But I did want to take a moment to acknowledge his leadership this past year And I kind of narrowed it down to not related to actually what we've accomplished. paving streets. opening up a playground, the sister city moving from one program to three. I mean, there's a lot of accomplishments that I think the entire council gets credit for, but obviously the leadership of the mayor plays a key role and obviously the folks in the community that volunteer their time you and come to meetings and participate deserve a lot of credit as well. But what I do want to highlight just briefly here, are really what defines, in my opinion, the mayor. And it's not with his words, it's with his actions. We all know he's a man of few words, but his actions speak loudly. Can I come in? just created three categories. I think that the community looks at the mayor as very modest and humble and kind and goes for all types of individuals in our communities, from the visitors, to the residents, running errands for people that live here in town that don't have the ability, they don't drive any longer, offering them rides. running over to Molly Stone and picking things up for them, taking them over to the doctors for a doctor's appointment, I mean, just a variety of this health list. and very kind acts of generosity. And that's something that I see every day. I know that the staff here sees his kindness every day. our visitors that visit the town, get off the bus, trying to figure out how to use the parking machine, Herb is there. and tries to help in any way possible. One of the things that is important to highlight in his kindness is that he does give up New Year's Eve to drive over 100 people home. between the hours of midnight and probably 3 in the morning. And I think it's four years running that he's driven at least 100 people home with the safe rides Yeah, per year, safe ride home. New Year's Eve program that he and Scott Paulin implemented many years ago. Um, The other part is that he gives from the heart. He gives gifts. Thank you. to all types of folks in this community. And they're little trinklets and everyone that knows them I notice that he drives all over the Bay Area and beyond for these little things. And he goes to flea markets and he's online And he comes through handing out little tiny gifts to staff level at all levels, Just little, little trickles, but they mean a lot. Um, And I know he does it in the community to various community groups various folks in town. And he does it when you don't expect it. and it really does make a difference. It brings a smile, and it's really a gift from the heart, and I think that it's a very important quality to keep in mind that those random acts of kindness go a long way, and I see it, and I appreciate it. and I know that the children in our community that benefit the most from it, appreciate it because it's so random. But it's very, very, very kind and recommended. Um, commitment to service and I'm glad Michael Rex is here because the rotary motto is service above self. Um... Thank you. but in her is a member of Rotary. but he doesn't limit his service above self to just rotary. It's basically his motto, for how he provides service to our community. at every level. and I'm sorry, I want to look at what I wrote here because I wanted to make a specific point Um, you know, but his commitment to the community at large is mostly noted and recently honored for his volunteerism downtown. with the ferry boats, the buses. the pedestrians. the taxi cabs, the bikes, all the things related to the activity there and we obviously honored for that service and it's been very, very important. but most of them, Most importantly, He treats everybody regardless if it's a visitor that's coming for the day, resident that's lived here for 50 years the same with respect kindness. And with a smile. So with that, I'll end my speech. But I do think that sometimes we have to pause and remember As the mayor says, we're all humans, human beings. Uh... And that smile, the pat on the back, You're doing a good job. Sometimes we don't do that enough. And I know speaking for the staff here at City Hall, your leadership, your kindness, your generosity, has meant a lot to us and I think it's meant a lot to the community. Oh. Debbie, our city clerk. has always done a nice job of finding outstanding plaques to give to the outgoing mayor. But this is, I'll hold it up. to our audience. Um, Amen. with appreciation to Herb Weiner for your dedicated service as mayor from December 11th, to December 10, 2013. you And with that, I conclude my remarks to our outgoing mayor. |
| 03:02:56.22 | Unknown | Thank you, Adam. |
| 03:03:09.82 | Unknown | Thank you. It's been quite a year for me. I'm still growing even at my age. And it's... It all started this year here also not only having the privilege to be mayor of Sausalito, which is a... It's an honor. And I also was the president of the Marin County of Mayors and Council. I really want to thank some people there. Al Burrow. former mayor of San Rafael. He really, him and Barbara Heller, both from San Rafael, kind of taught me a lot of things about How? We're just not here in Sausalito, but we're part of Marin County. to participate in the things that we do in the county but Alice Fredericks, who is now the mayor, of Tiburon. She really has been very instrumental in moving me along as far as learning also things about our county. But most importantly, um, I guess I'd have to thank Amy Belzer. Uh. You know, she really taught me a lot of things over the years, and how to listen, how to be patient, And she really was a wonderful person and a wonderful Council and Mayor for all those years. So I really want to thank her. Um, My thinkings have always been that in life you either understand it or you're afraid of it. And the only thing that comes out of fear is anger. So I hope as this council moves forward, into the next year. that we go in the direction more of care than fear. And I hope that remains. So thank you all very, very much. Okay. |
| 03:05:27.22 | Unknown | Oh! Okay. It's past my bedtime, so let's keep moving along. And now we have At this time here, I would like to make my nominations for not only for mayor, but after that make it for vice mayor. So I'd like to lead it first with the nomination of Jonathan Leong. the Vice Mayor as Mayor. |
| 03:05:54.93 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, Herb, for that. I'm going to have to decline the chance to serve as mayor this year. I just have too much going on in my work life and private life with my family and such to really do justice to the honor of being a mayor of Sausalito. I enjoyed the two years I did it previously. And we'll see if it ever happens to have the opportunity again down the road. But thank you for that mentioning to me. I appreciate that. But I think life is a little too full for me right now, and I'm trying to balance things that I wouldn't be able to do it justice. |
| 03:06:34.74 | Unknown | Okay. Well, with that, boy, as the world turns, with that, then I would like to then make the nomination for Ray Withey as our next mayor. Do I have a second? |
| 03:06:39.06 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:06:49.59 | Thomas Theodores | Second. |
| 03:06:50.74 | Unknown | Okay. Any other nominations? Okay, with that, all in favor? Aye. Opposed? |
| 03:06:57.77 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. No. |
| 03:07:01.43 | Unknown | I'm sorry? Yes? |
| 03:07:04.07 | Thomas Theodores | I said no. |
| 03:07:07.95 | Unknown | Okay. All right. Um. And let's have a roll call. |
| 03:07:20.27 | Unknown | Council member Fiverr. |
| 03:07:21.65 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 03:07:24.05 | Unknown | Council Member Theodore's. |
| 03:07:25.24 | Thomas Theodores | Yes. |
| 03:07:28.05 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 03:07:28.11 | Unknown | So remember, we think |
| 03:07:28.97 | Alice Merrill | Thank you. |
| 03:07:31.56 | Ray Withy | Well if I said no, I suppose I would be declining. So I guess yes. |
| 03:07:34.83 | Alice Merrill | LAUGHTER I'm sorry. Vice Mayor Leon. |
| 03:07:40.31 | Ray Withy | Yes. |
| 03:07:40.97 | Unknown | Okay, with that, yes. And with that, I would like to nominate for Vice Mayor Tom Theodorus. I have a second. I'll second that. Okay. Any other nominations? Okay, can we have a vote? Debbie? |
| 03:08:06.22 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:08:13.03 | Unknown | Council member Fiver. |
| 03:08:14.77 | Thomas Theodores | No. |
| 03:08:22.99 | Unknown | Councilmember Leodores. |
| 03:08:25.44 | Thomas Theodores | Yes. |
| 03:08:27.16 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:08:27.73 | Unknown | It says he found a career. |
| 03:08:28.02 | Davin Rose | says it emphatically |
| 03:08:29.10 | Unknown | Yes. |
| 03:08:33.84 | Unknown | by family? May or may or may or may. |
| 03:08:38.92 | Unknown | Yes. So now I can change. But before I do that, there's one thing I would like to do, and that's to... Oh, for me? Thank you. Yes. |
| 03:08:46.90 | Unknown | Oh, yeah. Thank you. Yeah. |
| 03:08:50.16 | Unknown | Debbie, I couldn't have done it without you. |
| 03:08:51.95 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:09:06.97 | Unknown | Thank you. This might be warmer. |
| 03:09:44.14 | Davin Rose | I'm just like, I'm going to pass. |
| 03:09:45.44 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:09:49.51 | Unknown | Okay. |
| 03:09:51.45 | Ray Withy | So I would just like to say a few words. It's a humbling experience being a council member. You quickly learn how little you don't know. And it's... Obviously a great honor, but even more humbling to be given the confidence of my fellow Council Members to act as your Mayor. So I will say what I said this time last year, which is about service generally that I will Do my utmost. to do the best job I can and to help lead us together to make good decisions for the moving forward. And I'd like to thank Herb. I've learned an enormous amount from you, but also very much like to thank former Vice Mayor, who has been an invaluable help as he's helped me navigate through and understand the city finances and much of, as we heard tonight, there's a lot of history, some history that Newer members on the Council just don't know. I think the most important thing is to listen to everybody. So I'm assuming from protocol, you want, I'm supposed to finish the meeting. So, with that, and with a big thank you again to everybody and to Um, uh, To also remember that Whatever we do moving forward, we're building on all the good work that's been done by previous councils. not only this last year but over the last many, many years. And the majority council over the last number of years have produced what I think is the good results in terms of our financial resilience and our city as a whole. So we're standing on the shoulders of giants. So, Let's Let's move on. City Manager's report. Madam, over to you. |
| 03:12:39.34 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:39.37 | Unknown | Madam |
| 03:12:40.03 | Davin Rose | Oh dear. |
| 03:12:40.79 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:40.98 | Davin Rose | Thank you. |
| 03:12:41.03 | Unknown | Thank you. I'm going to move. |
| 03:12:41.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:41.89 | Davin Rose | Thank you. |
| 03:12:42.04 | Adam Politzer | of the |
| 03:12:42.12 | Unknown | Ooh. |
| 03:12:42.41 | Davin Rose | the lesbian. |
| 03:12:43.59 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:45.13 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:12:45.26 | Adam Politzer | I'm going to move my speaking location to that podium. I kind of like it behind me, in front of the camera. |
| 03:12:45.70 | Unknown | Mm-hmm. |
| 03:12:51.86 | Adam Politzer | Just very quickly on the consent was our summary notes from the strategic planning session. I thought the session was very valuable. Our facilitator really helped us move through that process. But as the council probably recognized as well as the public, there is a lot of opportunity to expand and enhance what's in those notes. Most strategic planning sessions are a minimum of a two-day process. Some folks do it in three days, but we don't have the money or the time to do that. So over the course of the budget, the priority calendar process, the budget hearings, priority calendar process, and then finalizing the budget We'll start to shape out some of the items that are identified in the strategic planning session and the council and the community will have plenty of opportunities to be heard and and help us strategize as we look down to the future. and out to the future. A reminder to the Council as we're going into the holiday season, similar to what I shared about our outgoing mayor, this is a great time of year for random acts of kindness. There are all types of terrific charity programs that are trying to raise money for a lot of worthwhile projects One of the things that we're not doing this year, but we've done in the past is Detroit tribe for the Marin City families That program is still alive and well. So there is opportunities there. Our community food banks are crying out for food during this time of the year. So again, there's plenty of great opportunities to give. or just an act of kindness with your neighbor. Leave a little gift for them, thanking them for being your neighbor. those go a long ways and really build communities. Just wanna... Not just mention that to the council members, but anyone that's listening at home, that it makes you feel good to do those types of acts and strongly recommend. that we do this. We have our holiday party on the 17th at the Spinnaker. That's a spinnaker. Cavallo Point. Cavallo Point. So just a reminder about the holiday party. And then when we come back in the new year, Um, We'll have a council meeting and then we'll have our council team building on Saturday, And so look forward to you folks talking with Sherry Lund, who's our facilitator for that. Prior to that, with our new mayor and vice mayor, I'll look forward during this break between then and the first council meeting is meeting with the two of you reviewing the protocols that the council has adopted and see if there's opportunities to improve on what the council has adopted and then discuss that at our team building, which is traditionally when we review and enhance the protocols as best as we can. So with that, I wish you all a terrific holiday, a nice, relaxing, and warm break, and look forward to us coming back in the new year ready to take on the city's business. Thank you. |
| 03:16:17.08 | Ray Withy | So is there any questions of the city manager before we throw this open for public comment? So is there any member of the public who wants to comment on the city manager's report? Sayinad. Okay, so the next agenda item is future agenda items. |
| 03:16:37.48 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have some suggestions. One is the tour bus legislation. We talked about that earlier, and I think that's something the public would certainly welcome. Another one is enforcement of laws in town for the bicycle traffic. We have a lot of cyclists that continue to run red lights, etc. I don't know if there's anything we could take a look at to enhance that with more enforcement. The other thing is on the south side of town, tonight it was interesting. We had on the agenda the Gate 6 Road bicycle paths, and in the southern part of town, We had new bicycle lane traffic kind of configuration installed without any public outreach beforehand. And a lot of residents in the southern section of town have raised a lot of questions regarding the location of the bike lanes. So that would be another potential topic. And the next two would be the 10-year fiscal plan that I've asked about before. which I did not see in the strategic planning notes. And the other is something I've raised before that I haven't raised in the last six months, which is the performance objectives for city staff, for city managers specifically, performance objectives so that we set desired results. expectations. mapped presumably to our strategic objectives. |
| 03:18:31.08 | Unknown | Any other? ideas for future agenda items? Thank you. |
| 03:18:37.17 | Ray Withy | So... Thank you. Adam, did you want to comment on anything that Council Member Pfeiffer mentioned in terms of future agenda planning that is already planned? |
| 03:18:49.58 | Adam Politzer | um, On the south side of town, the only thing I'd respond there on the traffic configuration And I haven't confirmed this yet with our Public Works Director, but I think it's a discussion that we've been having because the community's been involved and I know it came up at the bicycle and pedestrian committee meeting and member of the public came shared his opinion and there was some, I think, healthy and good discussion. But if I recall correctly, when Public Works Director easily over a year ago, maybe now two years ago. when we were trying to look at temporary solutions and large solutions for that side of town, for the bicycle demand and the traffic and pedestrian impacts one of the temporary fixes. That's not the right word. Low cost fixes was to move that center line. And that's what we did. well over a year ago. There was a presentation that showed that. what we were recommending. And then we actually did it. And all that we've done now is repave the road and put the striping back where it was moved over a year ago. So, you know, we welcome the public feedback. I'm happy that it was discussed at the Pedestrian and Bicycle Committee because there was an opportunity for discussion there. and if the council wishes to re-examine that, Probably the best time to re-examine that is when we bring the $145,000 studied back. that we're working on now to look at other fixes. So I just wanted to state that I think there's maybe some misunderstanding, but I think there's That's the action that has occurred. |
| 03:20:45.27 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:20:45.29 | Unknown | own. |
| 03:20:45.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:46.27 | Adam Politzer | you |
| 03:20:46.32 | Ray Withy | Yeah. |
| 03:20:46.76 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:20:47.03 | Thomas Theodores | It's not a back and forth. I'd be happy to follow up after this city council session with comments with the city manager. |
| 03:20:47.09 | Adam Politzer | Thank you. |
| 03:20:47.19 | Unknown | It's not a back and forth. |
| 03:20:48.34 | Unknown | THE END OF |
| 03:20:48.53 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:20:48.55 | Unknown | I was... |
| 03:20:49.30 | Unknown | . |
| 03:20:49.34 | Unknown | I'd be happy. |
| 03:20:49.96 | Unknown | to follow. |
| 03:20:50.43 | Unknown | I'm sorry. |
| 03:20:54.28 | Ray Withy | I don't think that we can actually specifically talk about agenda, future agenda items. |
| 03:20:57.93 | Thomas Theodores | I was just going to make a comment, but I'm fine with having a follow-up conversation. |
| 03:21:02.82 | Ray Withy | Is there any members of the public want to comment on future agenda items? |
| 03:21:09.11 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:21:09.18 | Thomas Theodores | Go ahead. |
| 03:21:09.98 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:21:11.41 | Ray Withy | . |
| 03:21:11.55 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Oh, I would like to reiterate on the tour buses, I'd like to get a report on |
| 03:21:13.06 | Unknown | We'd like to reiterate. |
| 03:21:17.43 | Thomas Theodores | progress in terms of negotiation. I wouldn't use the term legislation, but it's a broader aspect of it. |
| 03:21:22.55 | Unknown | So, |
| 03:21:23.39 | Thomas Theodores | And I do think on the south end of town, I think the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee, which I'll report on, is working on that. And of course, the Public Works Director. But I think because of some confusion, we may want to have up here at least to go through what the process was to make sure the public is absolutely clear on. I think there's a lot of misinformation and confusion relating to it. I think we should find some sort of way and possibly, as you mentioned, We'll find the appropriate time to bring that up, I think. |
| 03:21:52.33 | Thomas Theodores | And... |
| 03:21:52.96 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:21:52.99 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:21:53.04 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:21:55.44 | Scott Diamond | Yes, I would just like to say, Doug Storms and I have been working quite hard to try and get the RVRA and the police forces that are monitoring the bay together for a workshop for quite some time. and our energy seems to be somewhat usurped. And I don't know what to say other than, you know, the population out in the Anchorage has almost doubled this year. And it doesn't seem like what's happening with the RBRA accomplishing anybody's goals really. And I was just over in Alameda Estuary today talking to a maritime worker over there and confirmed that what I'd been hearing that they're cleaning out the estuary of Anchor out so we've got more coming. And so I would just like to encourage the council to maybe lean on the RBRA to actually make some reasonable changes in the plan here because we need some kind of parameters for what's going on out there. Access, boats having responsibility for moorings, the anchor out port-a-potty situation, which should have been solved 25 years ago. I just think we need to. lean on the RBRA to move some issues forward and maybe lean on the the people that are monitoring, in fact, that we've got the sheriff, the RBRA, the city police and the coast guard to start coordinating their efforts so that the taxpayers aren't paying four different people to, you know, just kind of go out there at their own whim but actually have some kind of coordination. I would even suggest looking at the possibility of setting up a, what do they call it, a harbor district which might reform this whole thing and have one group that's responsible that could start with a fresh piece of paper and actually get the job done. |
| 03:24:12.21 | Ray Withy | Thank you, sir. |
| 03:24:15.48 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have one other topic for future agenda which would be beach access at Main Street. I know that the city manager has responded to some resident inquiries, but I know that before the sewer work began, we could access the beach at Main Street at that intersection. I mean, it wasn't elegant, but you could access the beach. So. Yeah, responsibility. |
| 03:24:40.81 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, it was fun. Thank you. |
| 03:24:41.44 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:24:42.03 | Adam Politzer | I actually took a walk out there with Mike Langford today. Um. And the access is the same as it was before. Council Member Pfeiffer had asked the question. The improvements there are actually on the side but the exact same concrete wall that kind of curbs down that has the green slime on it. And it has a couple steps that someone must have put in there. But that access is still the same. It remains the same. the response that I gave to the community member was Any access to that beach is going to be very complicated because it would have to be accessibility and we'd have to look at Do we have to provide path of travel, from that location all the way to Swedesvich, which is the public beach, And then what would that look like and what would that require in terms of the property owners that are between that location and Sweet Speech. So at this point, I kind of direct it um, a response that this could be brought up during the priority calendar process. It'll happen through the transition plan because Regardless, we have to make sweet speech accessible period. So if it makes sense to go down at the Valhalla location off of Main Street. or to go down Valley Street steps you know, that will have to be worked out through the transition plan. At this moment, there was no option through the Saucyutillus and City Sanitary District's efforts to add this onto it because that ship that sailed. Um... And so now it'd be something that we would have to prioritize amongst the other projects. And even if we don't prioritize it, it'll become part of the ADA transition plan. |
| 03:26:28.93 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you, and I just want to respond that it's, I think, residents will be relieved to know that the existing access is not going to change because there was a time when I walked down there and it was blocked off because they were doing construction. So a lot of residents were worried that that actually might somehow be blocked off forever. And so that's heartening to hear we're going to still maintain the wet access we still have. And I would like to see it on the priority calendar in the future. I think it's really important to have access to our beaches, better access. |
| 03:27:01.01 | Ray Withy | Thanks, and thanks Adam for that clarification. Should we move on to council member committee reports? Does anybody have any reports? |
| 03:27:13.14 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah, well, I want to You mentioned the Bicycle and Pedestrian Committee is up and running. We have a... Great committee, we're getting really excellent support from our Public Works Director, Goldman, and Captain Rohrbacher of the Police Department. We're also getting participation from the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. So they're really coming together. They've already tackled things like they have a camera on the south end of town and have monitored how many bikes are coming into town. They've done surveys of bikes. They've done surveys of businesses. They're really just up and running, and so on. I think we're going to get... a lot more productive recommendations from them in the future. So I think they'll also take a look at this Gate 6 access and might be a forum for some of the hearing and public input. |
| 03:28:06.10 | Thomas Theodores | There's some privacy concerns with that, but I know we can't get into it. |
| 03:28:08.51 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:28:08.53 | Thomas Theodores | THE FAMILY. Oh. Well, it could be, but they're on a public roadway and just counting numbers of bikes. Basically, they're not identifying them. They're counting numbers. |
| 03:28:16.09 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:28:20.02 | Thomas Theodores | Mr. Mayor, I have a committee report. The Butte Task Force, I had mentioned that there was a hope to have, back in November, I had mentioned there was a hope to have a public forum in December, I think it was December 5th. That was the initial hope, and that was postponed. The committee decided to wait until after the holidays when more people are, I guess, going to be aware of, you know, it's going to be more convenient. And my other comment was, I noticed the art commission is still next to my name, even though it currently still does not exist. So I would... |
| 03:28:55.46 | Ray Withy | I think that's a separate agenda item. |
| 03:28:55.93 | Thomas Theodores | That's a separate issue. I didn't intend to remove your name. |
| 03:28:59.52 | Thomas Theodores | Oh, I see. Oh, yeah. Okay, perfect. Never mind. |
| 03:29:04.32 | Ray Withy | Is there any public comment on the Council Member Committee reports? Seeing none. Let's move on to item 7D, which is appointments to the Business Advisory Committee. The Debbie, I think, is prepared a very nice, oh, Lily and Charlie prepared a |
| 03:29:33.54 | Thomas Theodores | uh, |
| 03:29:37.41 | Thomas Theodores | It doesn't give me the credit, so I should take it. |
| 03:29:39.91 | Ray Withy | memorandum describing, and we've talked up here before about the reorganization of the Business Advisory Committee. It is on the agenda tonight to suggest that the City Council consider appointing three city residents who are to be appointed by the City Council. And then if you remember, we had a decision some meetings ago, some months now probably, around expanding the group to nine members, having three more from who would be nominated by the Business Advisory Committee and which would be confirmed by the City Council And that The Business Advisory Committee's recommendations are potentially up for confirmation by us tonight. And then the third is certain members have been nominated by the Chamber of Commerce and that also is up for confirmation by the City Council. I would like to suggest that the first of these tasks, which is the appointment of the three city residents, not be done tonight. and that we move this to a meeting, our first meeting in January. Can we have consensus on that or do we need a second and a motion and a vote? |
| 03:31:18.93 | Thomas Theodores | I agree with that. you I think the census is fine. |
| 03:31:22.71 | Ray Withy | Yeah. So are we okay with that? And so then the next question is, I think it would be very helpful... |
| 03:31:22.72 | Thomas Theodores | yet. |
| 03:31:33.81 | Ray Withy | to try and appoint or try and confirm, if we can, the folks that have been put forward by the BAC itself, and those that have been put forward by the Chamber and confirm their appointments. |
| 03:31:54.38 | Unknown | We can't. |
| 03:31:56.25 | Ray Withy | And so I'm assuming we can do that this evening if we wish to. I think it would be good to because we need to have this populated for corn for the next meal. |
| 03:32:17.33 | Thomas Theodores | So I'll move on the BAC positions that we... approve the nomination by the VAC of Paul Dines and Bruce Huff to be on the Business Advisory Committee. |
| 03:32:31.42 | Unknown | Okay, I'll second. |
| 03:32:37.53 | Ray Withy | All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? hearing none. |
| 03:32:44.99 | Thomas Theodores | Okay, then I'll also move that we approve the Chamber of Commerce nomination of Tom Gigitano for position on the Business Advisory Committee to fill the Chamber of Commerce, one of the Chamber of Commerce positions. |
| 03:33:04.90 | Thomas Theodores | If we don't have both of them, should we just wait until we get both of them? |
| 03:33:09.12 | Thomas Theodores | Well, I think what right now, I think the way, if you look at the, um, Um, the chart that they actually have two others. So they only have one to fill right now. And I think we're also trying to fill with seats we can. I propose that we try to fill it tonight. the |
| 03:33:25.96 | Ray Withy | um, |
| 03:33:26.38 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:33:26.40 | Thomas Theodores | the terms for the other two, looks like one is in just January. Thank you. |
| 03:33:33.64 | Ray Withy | Jeff's term is coming up, or if not already ended. And he has agreed to stay on until the first set of... |
| 03:33:37.47 | Unknown | Yeah. |
| 03:33:45.03 | Ray Withy | folks are seated and then the chamber will suggest someone to the City Council to replace Jeff. Thank you. So that's why we're trying to do this in stages and not wait until we have a complete . |
| 03:34:02.63 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:34:02.70 | Ray Withy | Okay. |
| 03:34:02.87 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:34:02.92 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:34:03.26 | Unknown | Well, on that nomination, I'll second it. |
| 03:34:07.14 | Ray Withy | Okay, all those in favor? Any opposed? Okay. |
| 03:34:17.85 | Ray Withy | I did not ask for public comment on that. Was there any? No. OK. So the next item 7E is appointments for boards and commissions and we have two items. The first is to appoint Council Member Theodorus to the county's subcommittee on the homelessness. And Tom or Could you give some background on that? |
| 03:34:52.13 | Thomas Theodores | ground. Well, the county has a... a committee on homelessness policy and procedures. And there's a subcommittee from the MCCMC headed by Kate Collin of San Rafael And she's getting together a subcommittee and has invited Sausalito and specifically to join that subcommittee. I indicated my willingness to do that. And, of course, it's subject to the approval of this council. |
| 03:35:19.60 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:35:22.06 | Ray Withy | Do we have a, we don't need a second for this. We can just consensus or we agreed on |
| 03:35:28.19 | Unknown | CONSESSION. |
| 03:35:32.64 | Unknown | Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, I get to a point. |
| 03:35:34.28 | Ray Withy | Oh, I get to a point. |
| 03:35:37.03 | Thomas Theodores | How does it feel now? So then... I just want to let you know that Herbie's already told him yes. Yeah, okay. |
| 03:35:40.32 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:35:41.38 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:35:41.55 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:35:41.57 | Ray Withy | Yeah. Yeah, okay. |
| 03:35:47.78 | Unknown | . |
| 03:35:48.84 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:35:48.89 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:35:49.06 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:35:49.10 | Unknown | so |
| 03:35:49.21 | Ray Withy | So it's then my recommendation to appoint Council Member Theodorus to the County Subcommittee on Homelessness. And is there any other nominations? |
| 03:35:59.31 | Thomas Theodores | Is this your appointment? Yes, thank you. We don't get to nominate it. |
| 03:36:02.50 | Ray Withy | So that's a done deal. |
| 03:36:02.97 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. . As far as when it's the same thing, |
| 03:36:10.61 | Ray Withy | Council Member Pfeiffer, you've been asking to be removed, but... |
| 03:36:14.56 | Thomas Theodores | If I may clarify, this actually isn't quite stated correctly. It says, affirm Council Member Pfeiffer's request to have Art Commission removed from her list of assignments. It's actually until the Arts Commission is reconvened. In other words, obviously, I would love to be the counseleis unto the Arts Commission But we need to you know, line up again the prior applicants to interview again staff it and reconvene the Arts Commission and then you know, listed. Okay, so I certainly, so I would add the words until the Arts Commission is reconvened at the end of that affirmation. |
| 03:37:05.03 | Adam Politzer | Yeah, I don't know. I understand what you're asking, Councilmember Pfeiffer. I think you either stay on the list or you're removed from the list. And then as we just discussed with Tom's appointment, it's at the discretion of the mayor at the beginning of every year to reassign those positions. So you either stay on the list or you're off the list. |
| 03:37:28.83 | Thomas Theodores | And I'm just clarifying what my request was. My request was to take me, to take the Arts Commission off my list until the Arts Commission is reconvened. So, and I understand that at that point he can decide whether or not he wants to, I don't know how we want to phrase it, it just, the way it reads right now, it's you know, if someone was reading it, it looks like I just You know, how about until, let's just say, since the art commission does not exist right now. I'm sorry. How about that? |
| 03:38:06.93 | Ray Withy | I'm not sure this is an appointment issue in the sense that it almost sounds more ministerial in the sense that... |
| 03:38:11.98 | Thomas Theodores | Right. Exactly. |
| 03:38:14.41 | Ray Withy | The thing doesn't exist. It doesn't exist. So why is it next to my name? |
| 03:38:15.62 | Thomas Theodores | It doesn't exist, so why is it next to my name? Because it doesn't exist. |
| 03:38:19.67 | Adam Politzer | The commission actually exists, it just hasn't been populated. |
| 03:38:20.57 | Unknown | Thank you. exists. |
| 03:38:21.53 | Ray Withy | Thank you. |
| 03:38:21.66 | Unknown | it. |
| 03:38:22.03 | Ray Withy | This isn't. |
| 03:38:22.59 | Unknown | Copy. |
| 03:38:24.14 | Adam Politzer | Yeah. |
| 03:38:24.57 | Thomas Theodores | Yeah. |
| 03:38:24.78 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:38:25.12 | Thomas Theodores | Okay. So either until it's repopulated or just clarifies. |
| 03:38:28.46 | Ray Withy | So then you are, in fact, then removed from the list, and we will be considering all appointments to future committees at the next meeting or a meeting in January. |
| 03:38:31.87 | Thomas Theodores | You are. |
| 03:38:43.45 | Thomas Theodores | So just for clarity though for the public record, I'd like to add something to the current statement that clarifies what the true intent of my request is. I request to have the Arts Commission removed from my list of Assignments and request to be reconsidered when the Arts Commission is populated. |
| 03:39:08.86 | Ray Withy | So when we make that appointment, Take that into consideration. |
| 03:39:11.85 | Thomas Theodores | I just want to make sure because I don't agree to this. I mean, I would not agree to be removed based on the wording here. |
| 03:39:19.24 | Ray Withy | Basically. Yeah, I think we got it. Thank you. |
| 03:39:22.41 | Thomas Theodores | Thank you. |
| 03:39:24.03 | Ray Withy | Was there any public comment on that item? If not, The other reports of significance And there is none, and I don't think there's going to be from the public either. Any comments? So we can move that one along. |
| 03:39:48.74 | Unknown | Could you? Second, second. |
| 03:39:50.69 | Ray Withy | Let's meet and adjourn. |
| 03:39:54.17 | Unknown | you |
| 03:39:54.34 | Unknown | . |
| 03:39:54.53 | Unknown | . |
| 03:39:54.68 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:40:01.01 | Unknown | Thank you. to. |
| 03:40:07.98 | Thomas Theodores | Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 03:40:10.56 | Unknown | . |
| 03:40:10.91 | Thomas Theodores | you |
| 03:40:10.96 | Unknown | Thank you. |
| 03:40:11.06 | Thomas Theodores | I was going to reappoint you. |
| 03:40:12.72 | Unknown | . |
| 03:40:13.24 | Thomas Theodores | I'm going to take it. |
Alice Merrill — Neutral: Expressed inability to attend an upcoming meeting due to childcare but voiced a desire for access to the water, noting it is historical and that she had discussed this with Herb Madeline, who supported the idea. ▶ 📄
Douglas Storms — Against: Highlighted public safety issues in Richardson Bay, praising Crystal Gift's efforts but criticizing the Richardson Bay Regional Agency (RBRA) for policies that waste taxpayer money. Claimed a $470,000 grant incentivizes bringing in boats for demolition, leading to piracy of valuable parts, and called for a working group to resolve these issues through community involvement and communication. ▶ 📄